Bliss Of Another Kind
by violence4
Summary: Bliss. A very weird kind of bliss. Not the usual kind from having your hair look good or playing electro music. Another kind." Love isn't always bliss, but Vince just can't seem to leave it alone.
1. Chapter 1

**First story. I hope it's okay! Don't normally write this kind of thing but suddenly felt inspired after reading similar (better) stuff on here.**

**Disclaimer: this is not mine. As I guess you already know. Boosh belongs to the lovely Barratt and Fielding. (Title is also not mine, I nicked it off a Tori Amos song cos I'm crap at thinking of titles for anything).**

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**Bliss Of Another Kind**

I once found the perfect shade of eye shadow in a shop on the French Riviera. Hard to describe. Glossy. Glitter in it, of course. Wouldn't be perfect without the glitter. The woman let me test it out – perhaps cos she didn't speak English so she didn't really know what I was asking until I started putting it on, but she didn't complain. She held up a mirror for me and everything. I could have got used to that.

It was a sort of blue-green-purple. I can't remember what the colour was called; something French, I suppose. I decided it must be magic because when I put it on, my eyes snapped even more brightly and my hair got even glossier and even the eleven-year-old boy tagging behind his mother practically started drooling over me. Not that I'm not used to people drooling over me but they're normally at least sixteen. Fifteen. Fourteen. You know what I mean.

Anyway, the eye shadow was genius. I looked at myself in the mirror like I'd just met myself and was working out how to invite myself out for a drink sometime. And then that face came to mind, the way it always did.

_Even he couldn't not notice me if I was wearing this…_

But as usual it went wrong. I didn't have any cash. I'd only gone and gone shopping without my wallet. Typical. Things just always have to go wrong, don't they?

And that face comes to mind, the way it always does. The one face that never lights up when I strut into a club, that never follows the curve of my spine when I lean on the bar, that never checks me out when I dance. The one face I can never get to soften with a flash of my teeth (and no, I don't use whitening tooth paste… I'm all natural, me… except my hair; I'm really a kind of dirty blonde, but other than that, everything's down to biology).

I'd sometimes like to know what I did. I don't remember doing anything, not bad enough to deserve this.

I remember my mum once reading me some ancient story, in one of those books people give their distant relatives' children for Christmas, about this really vain man who was punished by being made to fall in love with his own reflection. If my mum hoped this would serve as a warning, she was a bit late. But occasionally, when I get reflective moments – they mostly happen like now, when I think about this stuff – I think I'm not a bad variation on that old story. I'm not in love with myself. Really. No, instead of lusting after myself in mirrors (I only do that occasionally – once a week), I seem to be doomed to something that I sometimes think is worse. The beautiful boy with the bright blue eyes, who can charm anyone within a five mile radius, is condemned to love the one person who isn't in thrall to his smile and the way his hair softly strokes his cheeks when he moves.

Am I being punished for vanity? I ask myself, on these thoughtful occasions. I think that's one of the deadly sins, isn't it? I never know. I'm not that vain, anyway. Honestly I'm not. And when I look in the mirror, I sometimes think, "Beautiful – but if I had to give it up and get an ordinary face, in return for one thing, would I?" And there's definitely one thing I want, that I'd give all this up for without a thought.

It might actually help if I lost my looks. After all, they haven't really been an asset. I've spent years of my life stroking my stomach through shirts in changing rooms, worried they might not hang quite right; years of taking off and re-doing my make-up just to get it perfect before I emerge; years of lying awake at night, planning what I'll wear to something special in the hope that just maybe…

And as usual, nothing happens. This is what I think in thoughtful moments.

Then I'll see a bird or a spot of paint on the window and get distracted.

There's one particular spot that looks like the continent Africa. Or is South America? I decided this spot could be my friend, because it had hung itself in the window for everyone to see, a bit like me really. Its name was George. But George didn't speak a lot. Even less than me. Then it turned out George wasn't alive so I went right off him. But sometimes, I still think he might be the best person to talk to about these things.

He wouldn't understand, so he couldn't ever just blink at me. He couldn't laugh. He couldn't do what I imagine would happen if I ever told _him_ – eyes widening, mouth slightly open, a horrible pause before a nervous laugh and a, "Very funny; you got me there." And then, "You're not joking… oh God." I try not to think any further than that because it gets too much. Even in my mind it gets too much.

Other things get too much, too. Like thinking about what it would be like for him to touch my hair. Or how it would feel to kiss him. If I feel weak at the knees just picturing this stuff, I know I could never do it for real.

I know this, I really do. But I still find myself taking an extra half hour or two to get my hair just so, another extra half hour to even up my eyeliner, and I'll catch myself arranging my arm, shifting the angle of my hips, if I ever suspect he's looking. Just in case…

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**I may continue this if I get enough reviews (so no pressure!!) However, it could also be a stand-alone story... haven't decided. Hope you enjoyed it, anyway. Thanks for reading.**

**violence x**


	2. Chapter 2

**Right! I decided to continue, after getting some very sweet reviews. Sorry it's been so long, but I've had a busy weekend. ****But anyway, thank you to everybody. You're diamonds. Your reviews cheered me up after a shitty Friday night. Special mention to xnadex, the spelling/grammar Nazi, for teaching me about "because"... I always wondered about that. Any more grammar advice is always appreciated :)**

**This chapter is a bit longer, lucky you guys. **

**Disclaimer: Not mine. I think you all know that.**

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**Chapter 2**

We were standing outside a concert hall once. We had a gig. We sometimes do, if we haven't played in the area before. I was outside, leaning on the wall in this big furry jacket and very tight trousers. I was trying to balance my foot just right against the wall, so I'd look good to anyone who walked past. There were already people checking me out but it didn't feel right unless I felt right, and I didn't, so I was trying to balance my foot against the wall. But the soles of my shoes didn't have much grip and they kept slipping.

_He_ was inside, checking the equipment. I wasn't exactly hoping for anything. I was. Of course I was. I always am. I wasn't hoping for anything more than I usually do – which is, a glance. Maybe.

Then the stage door opened and for some reason my heart jumped violently. Jumped almost as much as I did when I woke up once and realised I'd been sleeping on my hair straightners. (I got a big scar and everything, which I thought was very unfair because I use them so much, and if I hadn't bought them someone else might have done and that person's hair might not have been as nice as mine is.)

It was him coming out. The door swung and hit the wall hard. If I'd been standing a bit nearer it would have hit me, but I wasn't so it was okay. He emerged and then just stood there. Just stood there. He didn't notice me. I was kind of behind the door, only not completely behind because then it would have hit me and then he'd have known I was there because I'd have been screaming because that door looked pretty dirty and I wouldn't have wanted it to touch me.

Howard. Howard Moon. My best friend. God knows why. He has a moustache and he wears beige shirts – or sometimes tropical shirts, which are the only things on earth that make me wish he'd wear beige shirts – and he's obsessed with jazz, of all things. I mean, come on. Does this sound like my kind of person? I like people who like colours and sparkly things and make-up.

He's older than me but I can never remember how much. I ask him sometimes and he tells me but I always forget again. (Maybe, I think sometimes when I'm not thinking about Topshop or Mick Jagger, maybe I don't really want to know how much, because I think there's something wrong with him being older. I'm not entirely sure what but when my parents realised, they freaked out – but that's another story.)

That night he was wearing a charming combination in, you guessed it, beige that looked like it had been picked out by a blind dustbin man and vomited all over by a baby. He had been running his hands through his hair so it all stuck up and he looked older than usual. Gigs always stress him out. I don't know why. He says I don't understand because nothing ever worries me, which is almost true, because normally when I'm worried something distracts me, like a bit of pavement that shines, and then I forget what I was worrying about.

Of course, there is one thing that I never forget. It was standing right in front of me.

Why? What is so enticing about him? He was bending forward slightly, looking at his shoes as though even he might be having doubts about them. I could see the side of his face, burning itself into the orange street lights behind. I looked at his feet too, which were standing on the grimy pavement that was covered in old chewing gum and spilled beer. I moved my eyes up his legs. He thinks I laugh at his legs. I do. I do it to cover up the fact that they look good in those trousers, even if the trousers are beige.

He was looking critically at himself. I felt the breath between my lips. He reached up and ran his hands through his hair again and I wished it was my hands. He put his fingers on his face and I shook as if they were my fingers. He sighed and leant his head back, rubbing his neck as if it was stiff, so half his face was lit up by the neon signs and buzzing street lamps and the other side was all dipping shadow, slanting across his cheeks.

I couldn't stop looking. My knees were weak. I wanted to freeze the moment, preferably before I collapsed, freeze it and keep it forever in one of those snow globes. If I could really do that I'd have a hell of a lot of snow globes. Moments when our eyes meet, moments when we find ourselves too close to each other, moments when something means he has to touch my hand, moments when he says my name, moments when… moments when…

I accidentally made a little moaning noise and he turned and it was spoiled. My heart was still racing though so I know I didn't dream it.

He smiled tiredly when he saw it was me. "Didn't know you were there, little man," he said.

I love it when he calls me that.

"Alright?" I said, hands back on hips, duck your head down, toss your hair, smile at him, flash your eyes, the way you do with everyone, step forward. It felt like it wasn't really me. The real me was still against the wall, gazing at him.

"No," he said. "One of the amps isn't working."

I just looked at him. I didn't know what to say. Sometimes I don't when I'm with him. Sometimes I don't at other times too but then it's okay because I don't feel the pressure to talk, because silences give you away. Someone said that to me once. It might have been a chat-up line, now I think about it, but I didn't get it at the time because they said it in a bar and Howard was there too and I was watching him.

He gave me a rather irritated glance, like he thought I didn't understand. I did understand. I joined him on the edge of the pavement. He was looking up at the sky.

"Vince… what are you doing?"

I tensed because he'd said my name and didn't know what I was doing. Then I realised my hand was hovering near his face.

Oh God, I'd done it again. Forgotten. Got distracted and now look.

"Your collar…" I mumbled, pretending to sort it out, even though it was actually fine. He just stood there. The backs of my fingers brushed his neck like little flashes of glitter.

I had to take them away, of course. I hated to do it. The silence was strained as I did.

"Howard?" I said softly, finally.

"Yeah?"

"Why are the street lights orange?"

"What?"

"Why are they orange? My bedroom lights aren't orange?"

He mumbled and didn't reply, which means one of two things. One, he doesn't want to talk to me because I'm annoying him and he thinks I'm being stupid. Or, two, he doesn't know the answer to whatever question I've asked and he doesn't want to admit it.

I wasn't trying to be annoying. I was trying to make conversation. I mean, I did kind of want to know – I'd been thinking about it a bit before he came outside and before I started trying to arrange my leg on the wall – but it was also to make conversation.

I didn't say I hadn't been trying to annoy him because it would have looked so suspicious. He thinks I never think about that kind of stuff. In some ways I quite like him thinking I'm stupid. It lets me cover up more.

If the moon is round – we could see the moon, almost full – if it's round, like an orange, why do we only ever see it flat, like a CD?

That would be genius, actually. A CD that was made to look like a full moon. Bet no-one's done that before.

The stage door thumped again. Oh yes, I remember what I was saying now. The thump comes before I remember but that happens to me sometimes. Anyway, the stage door thumped and some guy in a horrible shirt – really horrible, worse than Howard's – appeared and said he needed Howard for another sound test because they thought they'd sorted it out.

There was a little group of girls at the end of the road. They were all looking at me.

Howard nodded to the guy who'd appeared. "Are you staying out?" he asked me.

"Yeah."

He glanced down the road, saw the girls, and nodded, looking rather disgusted. Not sure why. Anyway, I wasn't staying out for the girls.

He went back inside and as soon as he did, my heart raced again and I felt like calling out for him not to go, but it was too late.

So I stayed out there and tried to imagine he was still on the pavement. I put my feet where his feet had been but it wasn't right. I watched the door but he didn't appear again.

When my parents realised, they freaked out. "He's _how old?_" "What are you doing hanging around with this man?" "Where did you meet him?" "He wants _what?_" "Is there something you want to tell us, about your sexuality?" "I'll call the police!" "You didn't meet him in a chat room, did you?" "He wants you to _work for him?_"Work for him doing what?" "Is he a pimp?" "Vince?" "Vince?" "Vince!"

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**This is just the reaction I imagine Vince's parents might have had. I'm not trying to suggest Howard really is a pervert or anything. I may tell you guys the full story of what happened with Vince's mum and dad... (you know what to do P)**

**Thank you for reading anyway. Hope you enjoyed it.**

**violence x**


	3. Chapter 3

**I wasn't intending to update this soon, but it's Sunday afternoon, I didn't want to work, you guys sent lovely reviews and I was playing Gary Numan. The combination of those things brought this out of me earlier than planned.**

**Note: In the last part, I might have implied that Howard was about twenty years older... oops. I didn't mean it to sound like that. Actually, I imagine that he's probably about five years older. Why this is a problem with become apparent later. But yeah, it's not clear in the series... sometimes he's older, sometimes he's the same age. So I'm just using my imagination, which is the only part of this I own.**

**Also, the italics indicate a flashback. In case anyone's confused.**

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**Chapter 3**

It wasn't always like this. I didn't always love him. I can't point out one particular point in time when it changed or anything, it just kinda did, but I can remember, right at the beginning, when I didn't feel all of this. This. What even is it that I feel?

Sometimes I'm not sure. Sometimes the idea of us being together terrifies me.

But it's not like I need to worry, do I? It's never going to happen.

_I'm fifteen and I'm on the bus with my walkman on – back in the day when I still had one of those, with those enormous retro headphones, y' know – listening to Gary Numan, I think. I was coming home from school and I'd taken the seat on the top floor of the bus, right at the front, cause I liked it when I saw people looking at me._

_That all started almost as soon as I hit puberty. People started looking at me. In fact it was freakish. Girls would giggle over me, older girls, eighteen, nineteen. Men started holding doors for me. I couldn't walk down the street without a kind of fanfare of horns. When I started going to bars and clubs when I was a bit older, I used to get much older women – thirty, some of them – on office outings smiling at me and sometimes inviting me to join them. One especially terrifying time I got cornered in a lift in a department store by this fat man who kept trying to touch my face. I got away though. He tried to touch my hair next. I got out my eyeliner pencil and jabbed it right in his eye. Bit of a waste of eyeliner, on him, a guy who probably wouldn't no eyeliner if – well – if it poked him in the eye. He didn't, either. He made strange howling noises and didn't seem to realise what it was at all, so I legged it before he could work it out._

_I'd saved my hair, that was the important thing._

_So yeah, it used to freak me out a bit, but by fifteen I was used to it. Used to it. Liked it._

_So there I am, on the top of the bus, going along with Here in my car I feel safest of all etcetera in my ears – when I suddenly had the feeling that someone was looking at me. Nothing unusual about that but I wondered if they were anyone interesting, so I turned round. The only other person on the top floor of the bus was this guy with a moustache holding an enormous suitcase with a blanket over it. He seemed more preoccupied with whatever was on his headphones, so I decided I must have imagined that someone was staring. That happens. Can't tell the difference between my mind and the real world. Like, I'm sure that once I turned into a cat and could climb all over the roof tops and I met a girl cat and she was gorgeous and very into me, but Howard says that must have been a dream._

_Yeah, I'm not gay. People think I am. I'm not. I like women. I like Howard. Howard's not a woman. Confused? Me too._

_Anyway, then I felt like someone was looking at me again, so I turned round again and this time the other guy didn't put his head down in time._

_Perv, I thought, but I wasn't too worried. I was used to it. He didn't look particularly dodgy, anyway; just like one of those sad older men I get looking at me a lot who haven't been laid in the past twenty years, if ever. If he did get aggressive I had eyeliner, and hairspray too in case the eyeliner didn't work. If the worst came to the worst I could always yell and people would come from all over the city to rescue me. Well, wouldn't you? I would._

_But he didn't do anything and we got to my stop and so off I got, skipping down the stairs. The bus driver smiled at me and I smiled back at him – and then I noticed the other guy coming down the steps. He was looking right at me._

_Oh shit, I thought, and I hopped off the bus quickly. He got off after me. I pretended not to be worried – because I wasn't really, not that worried – and set off down the road._

_"Hey!"_

_I could hear him through Gary Numan, which is a big thing._

_"Hey!"_

_I pulled my headphones off. "I'm not interested, okay?"_

_"No, I –"_

_"Look, Grandpa," I said. "I'm not interested, yeah? Now leave me alone or –"_

_"I've got your wallet," he said._

_He was holding my purse out. The one I sowed sequins onto. I felt in my bag but that was definitely it, not just some freaky copy. I edged up to him and snatched it. I didn't really want to touch it now he'd been holding it. "How d'you get that?" I asked, wondering if this was some weird sexual ploy he got off on._

_"Your bag's open," he said._

_"What?"_

_"Your bag's open and it fell out when you got off the bus."_

_I felt like a right idiot then, I can tell you. There's me assuming he's some sort of rapist, and there's him just trying to give me my purse back._

_Mind you, perhaps it wasn't so stupid to assume he was a rapist. After all, normally, that's what it would be if a guy followed me off a bus._

_"Thanks," I said, rather awkwardly, because now he knew I thought he was going to attack me. Then I went off, and he stayed by the bus stop. I realised he'd got off before his stop to give me back my purse. Kind of sweet, really._

I bought some glitter hairspray a few days ago. It's genius. When I put it on I get shiny bits in my hair. Even Howard seemed to think it looked okay, because he said, "What the hell's in your hair, silver dandruff?" and he never notices when I do stuff to my appearance. He only spotted that my hair had gone black about a week after I dyed it.

Talking of dyeing my hair, I think I need to re-do the roots.

Yeah, I like to make an effort. Why do I always think about him when I'm making the effort? Don't I know by now it won't ever make a difference? He's almost aggressively straight.

He doesn't even like me that much, I know he doesn't. I know he finds me annoying. Perhaps sometimes he wonders why he ever got me involved in all this. I do, too. Perhaps I could have been a rock star if he hadn't come along, but that's another story. I don't know why he keeps me around. I guess he thinks I'm sweet. People do. But then, people also fancy me and he doesn't. I'm not much good at working out why other people do things but I wish I knew why he is the way he is.

I wanted someone to speak to, to ask, "What am I waiting for?" Normally when I have questions I ask Howard, but obviously that wasn't an option. I tried asking Naboo – he's a shaman. He's got miracle hair wax. It's genius – and he said, "I don't know, what are you waiting for?" and I realised even he didn't know and I wasn't about to explain it, was I? So then I tried asking Bollo and he said, "Vince waiting for Rolling Stones gig in three months time. Bollo waiting for dinner. Where is it?" so I had to go and get it for him. I sat on the roof in a lonely romantic way and asked the Moon, and the Moon said, "Uh…. When you are the moon, you don't get many visitors… uh, last visitors were Americans. Americans. Ha. Bloody yanks. I'm the Moon", which I knew anyway, and it had absolutely nothing to do with the question I'd asked. I asked a rock but it ignored me. I think it was too busy flirting with the ant that was crawling all over it in a way that I thought was rather forward. Maybe Howard would only have eyes for me if I crawled all over him but to be honest, I'm not brave enough to start it off.

I have been brave enough. A couple of times. Times that make my head spin just to remember them. But they didn't exactly get me anywhere, did they?

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**Ooh...**

**Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed.**

**violence x**


	4. Chapter 4

**Thank you all again for the lovely reviews you've been sending me. I'm really glad you guys seem to like the story! Sorry this chapter's a bit shorter but I'm quite tired.**

**Note: in this chapter, there is a flashback within a flashback... hope no-one's confused.**

**Disclaimer: they're not mine. If they were, well, I'd be too busy to get on here.**

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**Chapter 4**

We once worked at a zoo. I worked there because Howard wanted me to and he – well, I'm not sure why he worked there. Perhaps he told me and I forgot.

That happens sometimes. Stuff that I forget. Sometimes it's cause I was drunk. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes stuff just drifts out of my head. Which isn't really surprising. My head isn't that large. I reckon, if I had another two or three hands, I could cover the whole thing, which gives you an idea of its approximate size.

Approximate is a word I learnt from Howard. I learn a lot of words from Howard. He once told me the approximate amount of food to give to an armadillo and I didn't know what that meant so he explained it. I don't forget stuff Howard tells me.

Anyway, as I was saying, my head isn't really that big, and I think probably over half of it is taken up thinking about my best friend. Then obviously I have other stuff to think about, like Topshop, and Gary Numan. So I don't have much space for memories.

We once worked in a zoo. I liked it there most of the time. That was where we met Naboo, who's a shaman but I think I might have told you that before, and Bollo.

_There was this zoo party. To celebrate something the owner had done, like inventing a self-tying shoe or something. I thought that was stupid because I don't wear shoes with laces anyway. But there was this party and we were all expected to go because we were the zoo keepers. I didn't want to go because I knew it would be boring, because no-one there was anything like me and they wouldn't listen to good music. Then I heard Naboo was going and I cheered up, but only for about a minute because I knew he'd spend the whole time getting stoned so I wouldn't be able to talk to him._

_"You won't? Talking to you is like talking to someone who's constantly high," said Howard._

_"Ha-ha-ha," I said, not thinking it was funny. I thought it was sad because I don't like it when he says things like that. It makes me wish I could show him that I'm not just his ditzy little friend. I can think. I'm thinking now, see?_

_I can think about him. Oh, can't I just?_

_Anyway we had to go to this party and, as I expected, it was boring – totally boring, like Howard's clothes. But I went because he wanted to. He wanted to go because he was hoping to have it off with this woman who worked at the zoo, Mrs Gideon._

_That was one thing I didn't like about working at the zoo. There was always that woman there. Okay, it wasn't like there was any danger of Howard actually doing anything with her – she couldn't even remember his name – but even so. He thought about her when I wanted him to be thinking about me. This was when I was younger and not quite as clever and so I didn't know that would never happen, ever._

_I first met this woman when Howard was showing me round the zoo when I first came to work there. We were by the reptile house and she came barging out and almost knocked Howard over. She didn't even seem to notice. She just elbowed him out her way._

_Well, I thought this was a bit of a cheek, really, so I said, loudly, "Oi! He was walking there!"_

_She stopped then. "Hello," she said, "Are you new?"_

_"Yeah," I said, "And he was walking there!"_

_"Who?" she said._

_I nodded to Howard, who had gone the colour of this shirt I have with frilly sleeves. Bright red._

_"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't notice you," she said – finally. Then: "Are you new, too?"_

_"I thought you said you'd been here about a year!" I said._

_Howard opened and closed his mouth a few times._

_"Oh well, must go. Nice to meet you," she said to me, ignoring Howard, and off she went._

_"What a –!"_

_"Vince, don't."_

_"Oh, you can talk again now?" I said._

_"Yeah… you shouldn't have shouted at her like that."_

_"But she just barged into you! Are you going to –?" Then I looked at him. "You like her," I said, smiling._

_"Stop it. Don't you want to see the elephants?"_

_"Yeah. But you like her. You like her."_

_It felt a bit weird saying it. Even then, it felt a bit weird._

_Anyway again, we went to the party because Howard was hoping to have it off with Mrs Gideon and I knew he wouldn't and I knew he'd need me there when he didn't. It actually turned out that he didn't even get a chance to talk to Gideon because she was there with this panda she'd recently hooked up with. That panda liked me first but I didn't want to be tied down. At least, not to the panda. Maybe to someone else…_

_So Howard drank three glasses of wine and a bit of punch to drown his sorrows. He wanted to write poetry about his terrible rejection but after drinking that he was too drunk – he isn't used to alcohol. So I had to lug him off. He was hanging off my arm and singing very loudly. Singing, "There's a staaaaaaaaaaarman, waiting in the sky...!" I knew I'd influenced him in some way. I somehow managed to get him back to the zoo keepers' hut we shared without getting my hair too rumpled._

_That was when we kissed for the first time._

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**Sorry. Couldn't resist...**

**Hope you enjoyed.**

**violence x**


	5. Chapter 5

**Once again, thank you all for the lovely reviews. I'm really glad you guys like this story.**

**Something is actually going to start happening in this chapter. Also, it's a bit longer, so bear with it.**

**Disclaimer: not mine. Yep.**

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**Chapter 5**

Naboo's going somewhere.

"Where are you going?" I ask.

"I've been summoned by the Board of Shamen," he goes, in his usual deadpan way. He's packing things so I know this isn't just go-over-for-a-chat-and-a-cuppa. Looks like he'll be away for a few days.

"How long you going for?"

"Not sure… could be a while." Naboo piles about five enormous books into a suitcase and attempts to close it.

"Here, I'm an expert at getting stuff in cases." I push past him, cram the top of the case down in the way I'm so good at because I always have more things to take than cases really hold, and zip it up expertly. I feel proud of myself.

Naboo nods to me.

"Why're they summoning you, anyway?" I ask.

"Something's come up," says Naboo, acting bored but still obviously hoping I'll think he's important. "Something dangerous. They said they need me to deal with it."

"What kind of something is it, then?"

"Something dangerous," says Naboo vaguely.

"Come off it! I bet they just want you cause you took that girl to Paris for the weekend on your magic carpet."

Naboo glares at me. "I didn't know Tony Harrison had decided to take Mrs Harrison on a trip there that weekend, did I?"

I laugh.

Bollo appears. "Magic carpet ready," he grunts.

"Cheers, Bollo." Naboo heaves up his suitcase. It's the same size as he is. I think this is funny so I laugh, and I don't think he understands why. He lugs it out of his bedroom and I follow him. The magic carpet is hovering outside the drawing room window.

"You need to do something with this old carpet, Naboo. I could touch it up for you. Put on some sequins, tie-dye it maybe, it could be genius."

Naboo gives me a look.

He doesn't know much about fashion.

"Right," says Naboo, "I shouldn't be gone more than a few days."

He doesn't sound very sure. I suddenly feel worried. I can cope without him and Bollo here for a few days, but not much longer.

The reason for this comes staggering up the stairs, obviously in a very bad mood. He stops when he sees Naboo heaving his suitcase out of the window.

"You're going somewhere," says Howard.

"Yes," says Naboo. "Bollo, get out on the carpet so I can pass it to you."

"Okay," grunts Bollo.

Howard isn't happy. He looks as angry as rockers do when they see me, and as worried as me when I can't find the right brand of root boost. "Where are you going?" he asks.

"Board of Shamen meeting," says Naboo, finally managing to get the suitcase out.

"What? Why?"

"Naboo's been summoned," I say. "I reckon it's cause he took that girl to Paris on his carpet."

Naboo gives me another look. He was obviously hoping to try "Something's come up" again.

I don't care though. I'm thinking more about what's going to happen. Suppose Naboo gets detained? That would be bad. Howard and I would be left on our own. I can cope for a few days, it just being us, but not much longer. I can't cope being alone with Howard too long.

"How long will you be gone for?" asks Howard.

"Shouldn't be more than a few days," says Naboo. "You two will manage. No calling me. I'm not sorting you out this time." He scrambles out of the window, looking rather funny but I'm not in the mood to laugh any more. He settles himself on his carpet and nods to us. We watch him as he sails away.

Alone.

"Alone at last," I say, jokily, to hide how much my stomach is clenched.

Howard just rolls his eyes. "If you do anything to get us into trouble…"

"I won't!"

Howard nods.

I knew he didn't really like me that much.

_Howard was still singing, but softer now. "Come on," I said, opening the door of the hut. "In."_

_"Ah! Here!" Howard spun around on the spot, trying to look around at everything. I had to hold onto him to stop him falling over. I pushed him through the door and shut it behind us. Then I leant against it._

_"What?"_

_I turned round. He was standing, reasonably straight, swaying a bit and looking at me with wobbling eyes._

_"What" was that I knew tomorrow I'd be in trouble for not stopping him drinking. Well, I'd tried. He wasn't having it. When I tried to take the glass he started shouting, so I stopped because he was making a scene._

_"Nothing," I said. No point explaining when he was so out of it. For once, I had to be in charge and it was kind of scary. "Let's go to bed." Or go to bag, I guess, cause we only had sleeping bags._

_"I don't want to go to bed."_

_"What? Why?"_

_"I have to… have to write poetry." Howard wobbled towards our table. "Paper… paper…"_

_"No!" I said, trying to be forceful like he is._

_"I'm a poet… have to write poetry…"_

_"No, Howard, you're off your head." I grabbed his arm and tried to hold onto him. _

_"Vince… Vinsh?"_

_"Yeah," I said, "It's me."_

_"Vinsh?" He staggered and I seized his other arm, hauling him back up. _

_"C'mon, get into bed," I said._

_"Vinsh?"_

_"__**What?**__"_

_"You've got… got shmudges…" He reached out to under my eye. I suddenly felt his thumb in contact with my skin, skin that people don't often touch. He rubbed his thumb under my eye. Suddenly his own eyes were focused._

_I looked up at him. I could see his brown eyes in the lights coming from outside. A few strands of his hair hung down over his face. I realised how close we were. How close he was standing to me. How his hand was still on my face. How close his mouth was to mine. I could see it, slightly open. I was just the right height._

_"Gone," he mumbled, but he hadn't been rubbing the smudges for the last minute. Then he bent down and kissed me on the mouth._

_His lips were very gentle, very soft. I couldn't feel his tongue. It was a sweet, quick, fond kiss. Only lasted a couple of seconds. But even so, colours exploded behind my eyes and white heat shot through my stomach and I staggered against him, gasping enough to make a real sound, as he pulled away. _

_I couldn't take it in for a second. He'd kissed me. He'd kissed me, he'd really kissed me… _

_Then I clutched his face and kissed him again. I kissed him properly this time and it was so incredible my knees really did give way – but he caught me round the waist and held me up. I clung to him and he lifted me up, lifting me so my feet were almost off the ground, so I was the same height as him. His arms were firm against my back and his fingers dug into my shoulders, my face. He kissed me harder and lights went on throughout the city and birds scattered into the sky and Human League played in the background and the Moon said, "When you are the Moon, you, uh, you don't get much action…" but we couldn't hear him because we were still in our hut, kissing, and all the animals broke out of their cages and stormed the zoo because everything was released. Or that was how it seemed to me._

_A minute later?_

_Two minutes?_

_"Okay, little man?" said Howard, finally stopping. He didn't seem drunk at all now._

_"Uh…" I couldn't talk any more._

_"Still want me to go to bed?"_

_"You're off your head," I burbled weakly._

_He smiled, and I felt him wobble a bit. Still drunk._

_"All right." He nuzzled my face and then let me go. I had to sit straight down on the sofa and he laughed at me, and then went unsteadily to get his sleeping bag._

_I sat on the sofa feeling giddy. We'd kissed. We' d kissed. After years of longing for it, had he felt the same all along? What did this mean? Were we together now? I didn't want to ask. He wasn't even making a thing of it. He brought our bags. He flopped over. I crawled up next to him._

_"Goodnight, then," said Howard, still slurring a bit. He gave me another kiss. Another lingering pressing of lips. He ran his hand over my hair and my stomach flipped. Wow, what have I been missing all these years I didn't let anyone touch me there? Then he lay down and was asleep before I could even start thinking of anything to say._

_I woke up next morning to sun pouring through my window and Howard snoring next to me. I remembered in a sparkling, blissful rush what had happened the night before. I rolled over to look at him. He had his mouth slightly open and hair everywhere. Didn't look too different to how he normally does, really. I thought he looked wonderful._

_He woke up while I was straightening my hair, with a noise like "Urrrrrr…"_

_"Morning," I said, beaming away at him, and quickly checking the mirror to make sure I looked good._

_"Urrrrrr…"_

_"Is that all you can say now?" I laughed._

_"Yes," said Howard. "I feel terrible. I'm dying. What's wrong with me?"_

_"It's called a hangover, Howard."_

_"What did I drink?"_

_"Don't you remember?"_

_"No."_

_"Three glasses of wine and a bit of punch."_

_"Oh, God… no wonder I feel so terrible." He lay back down. "Did I do anything embarrassing? Did I do anything to Mrs Gideon?"_

_"She was with that panda –"_

_"What?" Howard sat straight up, and then moaned. "Oh, my head…"_

_"Yeah, don't you remember?"_

_Howard's eyebrows slid together. "I remember… we went to the party… and… then what?"_

_"Is that it? Come on, Howard, we went to the party, and Gideon was with the panda, and then…" I tailed off._

_"And then?" Howard prompted._

_I saw the look on his face._

_There was silence._

_"What? Vince? Are you okay?"_

_I couldn't speak._

_"What's wrong? Do you have a hangover too?"_

_He didn't remember. He really didn't remember._

* * *

**Thanks for reading.**

**Woo for Boosh Series 3 on DVD on February 11th!**

**violence x**


	6. Chapter 6

**I just wanted to say, thank you to everyone who has favourited this story or put me on author alert. It really made my day:)**

**Howard being evil in this chapter. Sorry. It just came out. Not sure where from.**

**Disclaimer: Barratt's and Fielding's.**

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**Chapter 6**

"Do you want anything to eat?"

I didn't want anything to eat. I wasn't hungry because I'd had Smarties and Gummy Bears about an hour before Naboo left. Lots of Smarties and Gummy Bears. I like them because they're colourful like me. But I reckon they'd be better if they were glittery. Yeah! Glittery Gummy Bears. That would be genius. Perhaps I should start a company.

I didn't want anything to eat but I was trying to make conversation. Howard wasn't in a good mood. He said he'd had a bad journey on the train – "And then I get home and find I'm stuck alone with you for days on end!" I tried not to cry when he said that.

I don't know why he doesn't like me any more. He used to like me. In fact he liked me more than I liked him at first.

_"You could come and work for me," said Howard._

_"What?"_

_We were sitting in this bar that I'd dragged him to. Howard had been telling me about how he was in trouble at the zoo where he worked, because he was supposed to have an apprentice zoo keeper to train up, and he'd had one, but they'd spent all their time playing jazz, and then the apprentice zoo keeper got talent-spotted and had gone off to make a jazz CD. The manager of the zoo – "Barking mad," said Howard – wasn't pleased. He said they needed to train someone up because there was another zoo keeper who'd be retiring quite soon._

_I had been telling Howard about a new belt I bought in Topshop. It had metal studs on it and it was pink. For some reason, I had got the impression he wasn't very interested. He was staring miserably into his drink (tea)._

_"And also," I said, thinking I should tell him something to get his attention again, "I bought these jeans and they're black, and they've got sequins…"_

_"Mmm," went Howard._

_"Howard, are you even listening to me?"_

_"What? Yes, of course."_

_"What did I just say then?"_

_"You – you bought a hat," Howard guessed._

_"Ha! I knew it! I didn't buy a hat, I bought black jeans with sequins! I knew you weren't listening!" I laughed and I expected him to laugh too. He gave a very half-hearted chuckle, and went back to peering into his tea._

_"Howard? You okay?" I asked, worried suddenly._

_"Yeah, I'm fine, Vince."_

_I looked at him. I knew he wasn't okay. "C'mon, you can tell me," I said._

_He pushed his hair back off my face – and I got a sudden, inexplicable urge to use my own fingers, to style it all up for him because it really needed it – and then muck the style up again running my hands through his hair…_

_That was when it was just starting. I didn't know what it meant at the time. I was only fifteen and not as clever as I am now._

_Howard looked at me with his brown eyes. Small but very deep eyes. We stared at each other for a moment._

_Then he blinked and said, "No, it's nothing. It's just my boss. I need to get someone to work for me or –" He broke off._

_"Or what?" I asked. "He won't fire you, will he?"_

_"No."_

_"What will he do?"_

_Howard was suddenly looking very uncomfortable._

_"What?" I asked._

_Howard cleared his throat nervously. "Well, he has… he has these pictures of me…"_

_"Pictures?"_

_"Yeah, of me – naked."_

_"What?" I yelped, leaping out of my seat. Howard grabbed me and pushed me back down. "Don't make a scene." He hated it when I did stuff that drew attention to us. He was worried someone might see us and tell my parents. They didn't like Howard._

_"Sorry, sorry. But what do you mean? He can't do that! That's, like, illegal, isn't it?"_

_"I told you he was barking mad," said Howard._

_"That's not just mad, Howard, that's verging on perverted!" I thought for a moment. "So, if you do stuff he doesn't like, he'll…?"_

_"Well… yes."_

_"Christ, Howard. And you just let him do that, do you?"_

_Howard nodded._

_"But why?"_

_"You don't understand," Howard said. He gave me a look that said, "How could you? You're only fifteen."_

_I felt irritated by that. "You need to tell him to sod off, that's what you need to do," I said. "If he was my boss he wouldn't get away with that kind of stuff."_

_"I'm sure he wouldn't," said Howard. "But he's not your boss, and I'm not like you."_

_And that's when he said it._

_"You could come and work for me."_

_"What?"_

_"You could come and work for me!" Howard suddenly looked excited. "You could be the new keeper!"_

_"What? No, I couldn't! I'm still at school! And you know my parents, they'd… they'd go ape shit! You know they would."_

_Howard was looking at me pleadingly. "Come on," he said. "I need to find someone new." He paused, and then looked sideways at me in a way that made a little jump happen somewhere around my stomach. "And, don't you think we'd do well together? You and me?"_

_That was a bit intense. "No, Howard, I'm sorry. I can't."_

So it was all him. Not me. All him.

"Are you hungry?" I said. Again.

Howard groaned softly. "All right, yes. I'm hungry," he said, like it was my fault we weren't having a conversation and we had to resort to meals to have something to say to each other.

But I didn't want to argue with him, so I hurried off to the kitchen. Howard joined me after a minute, because he knows I can't cook.

"What do you want?" I said, giving him what I hoped was a cheery grin.

"What is there?" Howard asked, putting a hand over his forehead like he was in pain.

"Um… soup…"

For a second our eyes met. And, for a second, there might have been a brief flicker of a smile on his face. And I opened my mouth to say, "Remember when we had that soup?"

But then Howard turned away and said briskly (I learnt that word from Howard), "I don't like soup much any more. What else?"

I felt like he'd snapped a pair of hair straightners round my face.

I swallowed hard.

"Um… rice… some of Naboo's instant meals from Shamansbury's… um…" And then, to my horror, my throat closed up and I made a small rasping noise, like a CD scratching.

"Vince?" Howard turned round. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," I choked.

"Are you _crying_?" Howard asked incredulously (another word I learnt from Howard. See, everything's Howard. Howard, Howard, Howard.).

"No."

"You are crying. Vince, what –?"

"I'm not crying! Let's have rice!" I groped for the packet in the cupboard, but got a large bottle of Fanta instead. It overturned and fell, taking rice and several packs of pasta with it. It all crashed to floor.

"Vince!" Howard cried.

The rice and pasta packets split. The Fanta bottle cracked and orange fizzy liquid squirted everywhere: all over the floor, all over the cupboards, all over Howard… all over me. "My boots!" I squealed, leaping backwards and crashing into a rack of pans. Large, heavy saucepans crashed all over the floor. One almost landed on Howard's head, but he got out of the way just in time. I jumped out of the way, slipped on the Fanta, and fell– seizing the towel rail as I did and ripping it out of the wall. I smacked onto the floor.

For a few seconds, there was silence.

Then: "Vince, you idiot!" Howard shouted.

"It wasn't my fault!" I felt the Fanta soak into my clothes – and my hair. "My hair!" I tried to get up, but I forget about this shelf that sticks out and hit my head on it. "Ow!"

"Jesus Christ!" Howard screamed. "This is exactly why I don't want to be alone with you!"

"It wasn't my fault!" I objected, struggling up. I looked around. The kitchen was covered in Fanta. The cupboards, fridge and oven dripped with it. The floor was half buried in spilled pasta and rice. The pan rack had overturned and the pans sat mournfully in the mess. One was cracked. The paint had been torn away around where I'd pulled down the towel rail.

I turned to Howard. He had orange stains on his shirt and a very murderous expression.

"Howard, I'm sorry… I was just trying to get dinner…"

"Well, you shouldn't have tried, should you?" Howard thundered, storming to a cupboard to get out a mop. "Now I'll have to spend hours cleaning this up!"

"I'll help you," I said.

"No!" he snarled, now mopping the floor as though he wanted to kill it. "No, I don't want you to help me! I want you to get out of here and stay out of here! I want you to stay away from anything that could go wrong while Naboo's away! I am not getting involved in some ridiculous song-and-dance over you this time, Vince! I'm not!"

"But – I don't mean it, Howard. You know me, I never mean it –"

"No, you don't. You just can't do anything! Everything you touch explodes, collapses, spontaneously combusts, gets covered in glitter and hair gel…"

I ran out then, because I didn't want him to see my eyeliner get smeared when I cried.

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**Argh! I am mean to them!**

**Remember to review! Because I want to hear from everybody and hear what you think :)**

**Thanks for reading.**

**violence x**


	7. Chapter 7

**I wasn't going to update so soon but, popular demand called so I thought I'd indulge you all...**

**The bit about Howard and Vince in their sleeping bags was added partly in an attempt to satisfy stars of andromeda's desperate need for fluff, and stop her pouting so much. I hope it has helped a bit ;)**

**More, proper fluff (and some slash!) coming in a few chapters.**

**Disclaimer: Not mine, unfortunately.**

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**Chapter 7**

_I liked Howard. After the purse time, he kept showing up on the bus, and we started nodding to each other, and then saying hello, and then talking. He said he'd just moved into the area and that was why he was suddenly on my bus all the time. I didn't really care. All I knew was that he was called Howard Moon and he had a moustache that made him look a lot older than twenty-one (which he was then but isn't any more) and he liked jazz, but he was fun. In a weird, repressed kind of way. He liked me. Everyone liked me. But he liked me differently – a comfortable, safe kind of liking like he would look after me. He said I was funny. He'd take me shopping and lend me money when I ran out. When once the heel on one of my boots broke off and I fell over and twisted my ankle, he gave me a piggy-back all the way back to my house. I liked Howard._

_My parents didn't like Howard. They saw him giving me a piggy-back. They didn't listen when I tried to tell them that he was just my friend. They thought there must be something going on, especially when I told them he was older. "But he's not that much older!" I said. "It's not the age gap!" they bellowed. "It's that you're still a teenager! There's obviously something dodgy about him!" "We just want to stop you getting hurt, Vince. We're worried about you. We just want to stop you getting hurt…"_

I push my covers off. It's too hot in my bedroom. Too hot to sleep. I can feel sweat in my hair and I don't like the feel of it at all. Maybe I should go take a shower.

But for once, I can't really be bothered.

Not like looking nice makes a difference. I looked nice earlier and it didn't make a difference. Howard hates me even though I look nice.

Why does he hate me? When did it change? I'm not clever enough to remember. Howard remembers things, not me. Unless it's stuff I did with him. But I don't remember why he hates me. I must have done something to him and it's about him but I don't remember. I remember everything else so why not this?

I find myself walking out of my bedroom in my silky black pyjamas – they really bring out my eyes – and padding softly across the hall into Howard's room. The flat feels very quiet without Naboo and Bollo here. I should be worried about them. I should be worried Naboo's going to get detained. But I'm not. I just wish he'd come back. Maybe he could make me forget the last few days. I bet he can do that. He's a shaman. Did I tell you that?

At the door of Howard's room I stop. I can hear him breathing inside. It's a weird little world, Howard's room. Full of jazz and beige clothes and Howard-ness – wonderful Howard-ness that I can't get too near to. Like there's some sort of barrier. Like an invisible wall. I feel like I'm holding my own chest open in front of him and he looks in, inspects what's in there, shakes his head and walks off.

I only think like this about Howard. Normally I think fizzy t bubbles bright colours electro hair gel Topshop dancing glitter make-up hats boots Mick Jagger sequins rainbows hair dye candyfloss pretty things, but not when I'm thinking about Howard.

It's cold in the flat. We normally don't pay for the heating but Naboo always sorts something out with his magic. He's not here now. There is no heat. I'm cold in my pyjamas.

_I remember when me and Howard used to sleep next to each other on the floor of our zoo keeper hut. It was often freezing in there, properly freezing, not just a bit cold like now. We had sleeping bags that weren't very warm. But Howard would say, "Cold, little man?" and I'd say, "Yeah, a bit", and he'd say, "Come here, then" and we'd roll towards each other in our bags and sleep very close together to keep each other warm. I used to love that. I felt safe with Howard's head next to mine, his hair getting mixed up with my hair (although obviously his hair and my hair could never really get mixed up as in confused because my hair's silky and root boost-ed and his, well, isn't, but you know what I mean). Sometimes Howard might put his arm round me. _

_One time, it was really really cold, and I came in late because I had to deal with a lion that wouldn't settle. It turned out the lion had a bit of a thing for this elephant that lived in the cage opposite but the elephant wasn't interested. I got the lion all sorted out with his mane and everything – it really needed straightening – and the elephant soon saw the error of her ways, so it was a victory for Vince Noir and his hair straightners. But when I got back it was very cold because it was winter._

_Howard was awake. He watched me blunder about getting into bed. He felt me shivering in the bag and he said, "Want to get warm?"_

_"Yeah…"_

_So he reached out and before I knew what was happening he had his arms round me. For a few moments it felt so wonderful I was afraid to let myself know it was really happening. But his arms went round me properly and pulled me against his chest, and I dared allow myself to relax and it didn't change. He really was holding me. So I shifted over slowly, letting myself lean against him properly. He patted my hair gently and I didn't care. I remembered kissing him. I pretended he hadn't forgotten. Instead, I pretended he'd remembered, and it had gone on, and now we were together, and that was why we were lying in each other's arms. I hid my face against his chest so nothing could remind me this wasn't true and, for that night, I actually almost got myself to believe it. And it was bliss. A very weird kind of bliss. Not the usual kind from having your hair look good or playing electro music. Another kind._

I wish now, with everything in me, that I could go into Howard's room and slip under his blanket with him. I wish he would hold me like he did that night in the zoo hut – not that anything happened, but he had his arms round me and I slept with my face against his chest and that was more than enough for me, to be able to touch him and breathe him in. I would get in bed with him and put my arms round him, to let him know I was sorry for being so ditzy earlier, and I understood I must irritate him… and I feel things about him I've never felt about anyone else…

I go back to bed because it's all a waste of time.

* * *

"When you are the Moon, uh, you… you get a lot of stories, uh, people tellin' stories about the moon. Um, some people say there's a man in the moon. Yeah, a man in the moon? Man in the moon? Or a rabbit. I think there, there might have been, um, a dog once… or a cow. A cow jumping over the moon. Cow jumping over the moon?! Did you hear that? Oh… um… you get mistaken for, uh, clouds… and, uh, planets… and, uh, UF, um, Os… I have also been mistaken for a member of, um, a member of the Sex Pistols. 

"I'm the Moon."

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**Thanks for reading. Hope this tides you over until I next update properly, which might not be until Monday because I have so much coursework.**

**violence x**


	8. Chapter 8

**Once again, thank you all for your reviews! They make me very happy. Sorry this has been a couple of days but, coursework called, I had to listen.**

**Bit o'fluff, as promised. (Once again, slash coming in two, maybe three chapters? Nothing hardcore but, you know, a bit of messing around... I'll up the rating if necessary.)**

**Anyway, to avoid being sued: it isn't mine.**

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**Chapter 8**

I like Coco Pops.

They're small and brown and sweet, a bit like Howard's eyes.

I'm eating them in the kitchen, very early, to avoid Howard, when I hear his bedroom door bang.

First morning without Naboo, Howard hates me and now, he's going to see me _without make-up_ and _without my hair done_.

Oh God, Vince, you've done it now.

I dive down to hide.

I hear Howard's footsteps. He's coming into the kitchen. Mick Jagger, if you're there, please let something happen so he goes away. Please. Anything. Even Gideon suddenly turning up and declaring undying love, just so he doesn't have to see me looking so ugly.

Okay well maybe not the Gideon thing, but you know what I mean…

"Vince?"

Argh… close my eyes, very tight, and pretend he's not here. That used to work sometimes at school when the other kids would call me gay.

But that time, I hadn't left a bowl of Coco Pops for them to track me down with.

"Vince, where are you? I know you're here, I can see you've been eating."

He doesn't sound especially angry, actually. Just tired. Howard tired, like he used to sound in the mornings at the zoo.

"Vince? Come on, little man, where are you?"

My heart leaps and sings out like the opening of a David Bowie song – Heroes, I reckon. He called me by my old nickname, and I feel like I'm spilling fizz out into the room – and I let out a little squeak without meaning to.

Howard pounces. But I hardly even realise this until his face appears in front of me. He's bending over the counter I'm hiding under, blinking at me upside down like a bat.

I squeak again when I se him, and quickly hide my face in my lap, covering my head with my hands so he won't see how horrible I look.

"Vince? What are you doing down there?"

I don't reply. He wouldn't be able to hear unless I look up, which I'm doing.

"Vince?"

Silence.

Maybe he can hear how fast my heart's beating. I could be the backing track to a disco song. It's thumping my chest, like, a million times a second, maybe more. Is that a lot? It hurts. Hurts. Am I going to die? Do I care? I can hear him – hear him breathe…

"Vince?" Now Howard's voice is much quieter. "Look, Vince, if this is about last night –"

Oh God.

"Look, I was just, I don't know. I'd spent so long on the tube, and then Naboo just left – and then all that stuff fell on the floor – but I know you didn't…" Another pause. Another couple of seconds that feel like I'm being tortured to death by being forced to listen to horrible music – more horrible than jazz – if there is anything more horrible than jazz – which I doubt – but this is more horrible than jazz because jazz means Howard and – "Look, I'm… I'm sorry, Vince."

I look up, and then realise what I've done.

Howard looks relieved.

He shouldn't look relieved. He should be reeling back because I look so ugly. Cause actually, between you and me, I'm not really – well – I'm not _that_ great without all me make-up and hair stuff and all.

"Vince, are you okay?"

He must be able to tell that this is bad from my face.

What can I say? "Oh yeah, you've seen me without my make-up and yeah, I know you saw me like that when we were in the zoo but since then, well, since then I've started caring even more what you think, cause there aren't any women around to distract you, and I think I look much better with my new hair anyway – which, by the way, I got done cause you said you liked this woman who had black hair, and also cause I thought it would suit me and I thought you might think I looked nice – and so I want to look good the rest of me so I match my hair, and I don't want you to see me looking ugly cause what you think is the only thing that really matters, and I wouldn't care if everyone else laughed at me and pointed when I walked down the street and put me in the Worst Dressed pages in magazines, as long as you said I looked nice –"

I think not.

Deep breath, Vince.

So I just shrugged a bit, because I couldn't explain.

And because I couldn't explain, I ended up having to eat the rest of my cereal with him – which would have been embarrassing anyway when I'd been thinking it was kinda like his eyes.

He'd said sorry. Mick Jagger must have been working hard. But not hard enough. It was still awkward. We didn't look at each other. Or he thought we didn't. He didn't look at me, hardly at all. I looked at him, but what's new about that?

The only thing he said was, "You're looking very fresh-faced this morning, Vince", which must have been his idea of a compliment, but it made me want to put myself in the food whisk and turn it on and crumble myself to sparkly electro pieces, because I felt so hideous.

I ran for the bathroom as soon as I'd finished. I left him to clear up, which might have seemed a bit unhelpful, and I had been thinking I should make more of an effort to be helpful so he wouldn't think I couldn't do anything without it exploding or spontaneously combusting like glitter or whatever he said, but, I mean, this was a serious situation.

I got myself all dressed in only about two, two and a half, hours. I didn't understand why he'd been up so early. I'd been through at ten thirty. How could he have been up that early? I didn't get it at all.

I thought he'd have gone down to the shop by the time I came out my room. He normally has. But he was still there, scatting. I thought this meant I could sneak past but the jazz trance finished just as I came out, and he saw me.

"Ah!" he said, smiling, a bit nervously. "That looks more like the Vince I know and love."

I staggered a bit on my heels. His words shot through me like a piercing gun. I knew he didn't mean it like that – but for a few seconds – for a few seconds it really sounded like –

"Vince, are you okay?" Howard leapt up, worried now. He obviously did feel bad about last night. He hurried over to me and caught my arm.

"Yeah… fine…" I mumbled. I was leaning heavily on the banisters and Howard was leaning over me.

"Are you feeling sick?"

"No…" I looked up at him – and then wished I hadn't. And was glad I had. It was like being back in the zoo keepers' shack that night he was drunk, when he was so close to me and I was looking up at him just before he kissed me. It was like being on the roof one night, a night that was so filled with explosions and pounding in my heart and stomach that I still struggle to remember it coherently now.

More than I struggle to remember other stuff.

For a few seconds there was total silence. I probably looked like a little bunny about to be eaten by a fox but I didn't care. I wanted to be that little bunny and be Howard's pet. I wanted to sit on his knee and have him stroke me occasionally. That would be heaven.

"Vince…" Howard said finally, his voice very low, like those people on the records he listens to.

"Yeah… Howard?"

"Are you sure you're okay?"

I gulped. "Yes…"

"We should open the shop." And he dropped my arm. "Come down in a few minutes if you feel dizzy." And with that, he went down the stairs. Oblivious (a word I got from Howard). As always.

He left me a trembling wreck, crashing to the floor because my knees wouldn't support me and holding on the banisters and wondering what I ever did to deserve this…

By twelve that morning I'd knocked over a shelf in the store and he'd shouted at me and I'd shouted back and stormed out and gone to Topshop. I hid in the changing rooms because I couldn't be bothered any more.

* * *

**So anyway, like I said, I'll update this simultaneously with my other story now (self-publicist? Me? No!).**

**Thanks for reading.**

**violence x**


	9. Chapter 9

**Right!! As promised, the update! And I'm SO sorry it's taken so long. I swear I won't do this again. I've been over-endowed with coursework and irate teachers and tiredness... anyway, I'll shut up.**

**I was going to make this longer but then it got to a good stopping place. But don't worry, I'll update again tomorrow so I hope that'll make up for it.**

**Disclaimer: Boosh is owned by Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding.  
The song Howard is listening to is this jazz song called "Cry Me A River" (not the Justin Timberlake song, it just has the same name). I have no idea who wrote it, it's one of those songs that gets recorded by half the musical world, but I didn't.**

* * *

**Chapter 9**

Day two without Naboo. Okay, evening two. We haven't heard from him. No way of knowing what's going on. He might have been detained and we wouldn't know. Then he'd just not come back and then what?

Howard is worried. He's been pacing. He does that when he's worried.

"Maybe we should call him," he says, for, like, the fifth time in an hour.

It was tense in the shop today. We haven't said much to each other.

I'm not saying anything now for two reasons. The first reason is I'm re-doing me make-up in the mirror in the living room and if I talk I might get distracted and mess it up. The second reason, and this was the reason in the shop too, except then it was the only reason, is that he hates me and I don't want to annoy him.

It does hurt. Everyone thinks, oh, happy, sunny little Vince – he wouldn't know hurt if it stood up and sang karaoke in a sequin cat suit. But they're wrong.

I know what it is, and it doesn't need a sequin cat suit, either. It comes in strange beige trousers and it has a moustache.

He didn't say anything when I got back in last night – even though I was very late and a little bit drunk. Before, he'd have been worried. Before.

_"Vince!"_

_I'm lying in the gutter of some street somewhere, not really knowing what's going on. What's this bottle doing in my hand? My head is thundering. My eyes feel like they're bleeding. I can see feet coming towards me – feel feet coming towards me, running towards me. They pound the pavement and it goes straight through my skull. My head's resting on the kerb. What happened? Where am I?_

_"Vince!"_

_I must have died. I can't see properly. Panic starts to surge._

_Then I feel hands on my shoulders. I hear a voice: "Vince! Oh, thank goodness…"_

_Howard._

_Even though I feel like I've died, my heart surges – somehow. I think it would do with him even if I really was dead._

_An arm went behind my shoulders, and someone was lifting me up, very gently, and pushing my hair back off my face where it had stuck. _

_Because it turned out I wasn't dead, I was just very, very hung over. Almost as soon as Howard reached me I rolled over and threw up in the gutter._

_Great way to get someone to like you, puking right in front of them._

_But then he didn't care. He held my shoulders until I was – well, until I was done – and then he lifted me back up. By that time two things had happened. One, Naboo and Bollo had arrived with Naboo's magic carpet. Two, I had begun to remember just how much I'd drunk the night before._

_They got me back to the zoo on the carpet, before anyone noticed I wasn't there._

_A few days later, I told Naboo cheers for coming to get me._

_"It was Howard," said Naboo, his eyes rolling slightly like CDs being turned off from whatever drugs he'd been smoking that day. "He was hoppin' about like a mad frog. Worse than my frog did when I was cutting its legs off to put in my pipe. He was freakin' out about you."_

_Bollo grunted. "Howard idiot," he said, "But he care about Vince."_

_"Did he really say you had to come and get me?" I asked, all school-girl-whose-crush-bumped-them-by-the-lockers. I was probably fluttering my eyelashes and blushing slightly and flicking my perfectly layered hair around so it got sexily rumpled._

_Actually, I know I was, because Naboo has this old mirror behind his couch and I was looking in that._

_"Yeah," said Naboo. He reached down and picked up a tennis ball from the floor._

_"Howard care about Vince," Bollo said again. "Vince precious dove."_

_I giggled because I didn't know what to say to that._

_Naboo was cutting up the tennis ball._

_"What ya doing?"_

_"I'm gonna smoke this tennis ball," he replied. "They're very potent, y'know, tennis balls."_

_I left them to it. Once I got high with them, I think quite soon after I got to the zoo but it's all very blurry, but I guess it must have been quite early on before I'd been warned not to get high with Naboo because you never knew what he was putting in the stuff – anyway, I woke up on the roof of the reptile house with a wheelbarrow and one of Howard's shirts on my head. It took everyone ages to find me. Then when they did Howard had to get a ladder and climb up to get me down. I don't like heights much. Then Mrs Gideon said that the noise on the roof had traumatised the snakes and the anaconda was having panic attacks and I thought she was gonna hit us with her glasses or something. Howard wouldn't speak to me for ages after that because he said we'd made a bad impression. We didn't communicate at all for about an hour. Then he had to because we were getting pizza and he needed to ask what I wanted._

_See, I always have something different. Howard always has the same thing. He always has your basic thing, no toppings apart from the tomato and the cheese. Me, I'm different. You never know what I'm gonna have. Peppers, mushrooms, sometimes even pineapple if I'm in a fruit mood. I'm like a pizza weather forecast – always changing._

Howard.

Howard decides to put on some music. I know he's gonna choose jazz. He does. I hear him getting out one of his old record players. I mean, come on. Some vintage is cool but those things were listened to by bronto-whotsits and terra-thingies. Dinosaurs.

But I don't care. He can listen to his dinosaur record players and I don't care. Because it's what makes him _him_ – Howard – my Howard.

Not my Howard.

Stupid Vince.

Maybe jazz would put him in a better mood. I go to get some more glitter for my eyelids. No harm in looking nice, just in case he does decide to look at me. Of course, I know nothing will happen. I know that. I do.

But I still catch myself hoping. Sometimes. Looking at him and imaging what it would be like. If he could just put his arms round me. Kiss me like he did in the hut ages ago, gently, like he really did care about me and didn't just think I was an irritating piece of electro burden.

Or harder. Yeah, course I've imagined that as well. His teeth against my mouth, his hands forcing me back into a mattress, a wall, a pavement, anywhere.

I'm in my room, applying more glitter to my eyes. My own eyes sparkle to match. Oh God, I can't cry. I've got me make-up perfect and everything, and Howard's putting on jazz and I've let Howard put on jazz so he might be in a good mood with me for a change, and if I muck it all up…

Music floats out of the living room. Howard music. Blues. Oh God…

"Now you say you're lonely, you cried the whole night through. Well, you can cry me a river, cry me a river, I cried a river over you…"

I burst into tears.

Oh dear Mick Jagger, there must be something really wrong with me. Reduced to tears by jazz.

"Now you say you're sorry for being so untrue, well, you can cry me a river, cry me a river, I cried a river over you…"

But I can't help it. I find myself down by my dressing table, in the shadows where I shouldn't be unless Howard puts me there, clutching my knees, rocking backwards and forwards, biting down on the sobs and digging my mouth into my thighs so he won't hear.

"Now you say you love me, well just to prove you do, come on and cry me a river, cry me a river, I cried a river over you…"

He won't hear. Stupid Vince – worthless, hopeful Vince. He never does.

* * *

**Come on, reviews! (Especially if you haven't reviewed before, I want to hear from you. I like knowing what people think! Your reading is very appreciated!)**

**Cheer me up, yeah? My Series 3 DVD didn't arrive. Fucking postal services :(**

**Thanks for reading.**

**violence x**


	10. Chapter 10

**As promised, your update!**

**And I made it long for you because I felt like being nice. I'm in a dizzy, happy mood. And because I wanted the story to progress.**

**Dizzy happy mood because I am a very excited Boosh fan who saw Julian Barratt in the street! Walking along thinking about Boosh stuff, looked up, and who was over the road?? So I chased him into a coffee shop - I mean, he was going in there and I followed him, I didn't kind of chase him so he took refuge there or anything. I walked past him, so he moved out my way. He looked at me! He acknowledged my existence for about a second!! My life feels strangely... completed.**

**Oh dear.**

**Also, thank you to the people who told me who the song I used in the last chapter was by. It was by Julie London. I downloaded her version (I had the Diana Krall one) and I found a few other good songs by her. So the song they listen to in this chapter is another one by her, called "I Only Have Eyes For You". You guys should download it. It's good.**

**Boosh is Barratt's (squeal) and Fielding's.**

**And obviously Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is not mine either.**

**Anyway, happy reading!! I think you guys might like the ending...**

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**Chapter 10**

_"Mum! Dad!"_

_I went sprinting up our garden path, through the front door, down the hall, and into the kitchen, where they were sitting, drinking coffee. They both looked up at me: my mum looking interested and pleased to see me, my dad – well, my dad. My dad didn't really think much of me, to be honest._

_"What's all this yelling for, Vince?" he said._

_"Mum, Dad, I got a job!"_

_They both looked surprised. Well, I had told 'em the only place I'd ever work was Topshop, and so I guess they must have assumed I'd got a job there._

_"You've got a job?" asked my mum._

_"Yeah!"_

_"Where?" asked my dad._

_"At a zoo," I said._

_Pause._

_"A zoo?" goes my dad._

_"Yeah! A zoo."_

_"How did you get a job at a zoo?"_

_"Well, you know Howard…"_

_"Him!" My dad suddenly leapt up. "He got you this job?"_

_"Yeah! I'm gonna go be his apprentice zoo keeper!"_

_"What about school?" asked my mum._

_"I don't need GCSEs to be a zoo keeper!"_

_"You don't want to throw your life away being a zoo keeper!"_

_"Oh God, this man! I knew he was trouble! What's he doing, hanging around with a fifteen-year-old boy? How old is he? Thirty? Thirty-five?"_

_"He's twenty-one!" I shouted._

_"Sure he's twenty-one. That's just what he's told you. Honestly, Vincent."_

_"He is twenty-one!" I objected, because he was. But they didn't believe me. They thought he must be lying to get my friendship or something._

_It went on for hours. "What about your qualifications?" "What does this man want you around for, anyway?" "Are you sure there isn't something going on between you and this man?" "Why do you want to do this, Vince? What's he said to you?"_

_I couldn't answer that one. Well, I couldn't really answer the others either but that didn't matter so much cause I knew they were wrong, or what they thought didn't matter. But that one. "Why do you want to do this, Vince? What's he said to you?"_

_"He hasn't said anyfing!"_

_"Well, why do you want to do this? Why are you prepared to leave school, sacrifice your education, for this man?"_

_How could I explain, when I couldn't even explain it to myself? I wanted to be with Howard. I felt I'd die if I couldn't be with him. I didn't understand it then. I still don't, as you know. But I understood even less then, when I was fifteen. I didn't know why my stomach sometimes churned like a mosh pit when he looked at me, or when he brushed against me accidentally._

"Vince?"

Oh God.

"Vince, where are you?"

Oh God, he must have noticed I hadn't come back into the room.

"Coming…" I say, leaping up desperately. I look in the mirror. Shit! My eyes are all red and watery. I try to dab them but I don't want to smudge my make-up any more than I already have. It's held up quite well actually – thank God for waterproof eyeliner – but even so, I might smear it…

"Vince, are you sure you're all right in there?" I can hear him. He's outside the door, waiting, just – just _there_, the way he always is.

No, of course I'm not all right. I want to throw myself out the door and kiss him all over, and I can't; how could I possibly be all right?

But Howard doesn't know this.

"Yeah… yeah, I'm fine! Be out in a minute!"

"Well, if you're sure…"

"Yeah! I'm sure!"

"All right." He goes. I hear his feet walking away.

I breathe out and lean against my dressing table for a second, trying to put myself all back together because it feels like I kind of broke apart. But now I've said I'm gonna come out, I can't stay in here. I do the most speedy touch up of make-up in the history of make-up touch-ups – I know because according to _Cheekbone_ the record is 1 minute 14 seconds and held by some guy called Angelo DiLacey – and I do it in 1 minute 12 seconds. Or at least I think I do. Maybe I mistimed. Or maybe I don't really care, because even if I could do make-up in under one minute – even if I was in _Cheekbone_ for it instead of Angelo DiLacey – Howard wouldn't care because he doesn't even read _Cheekbone_, so how would he know?

I go out of the room, hoping it doesn't look like I've been crying. I don't think it does – but as soon as Howard sees me, he says, "Are you all right?"

Sometimes I forget how well he knows me.

"Yeah, fine."

Howard looks at me like he doesn't believe me. For a moment I think he's gonna ask again and I might crumble. I almost hope he will.

But he doesn't. He turns away from me. He starts choosing another record.

I look at his chest. Nice chest, quite big. Just the right size to lay your head on, as I know from that time when he held me in the zoo keepers' hut. I want to put my head on it now. No, I want to bury my head in it, and sob, and not care if I cry all my make-up away.

But I can't. So instead I say, "Cuppa tea?"

"That would be nice," he says, giving me a faint smile like he thinks he's making a huge effort.

At least he's talking to me, though. I go through to the kitchen. I hear him rattling his records around while I make the tea. I want to make it really good tea. So he'll be pleased with me.

When I think it's perfect, I take it back to him.

"Thanks," he says, when I pass him the mug. Our fingers touch, very briefly. He doesn't even notice it, but I feel the little flash of glitter, and my whole body trembles with pleasure.

Howard puts his mug down on the table next to his record player, and finally chooses a record. He puts it on. Another love song. You'd almost think he's doing this on purpose.

"Are the stars out tonight? I don't know if it's cloudy or bright. I only have eyes for you, dear…"

"Setting the mood?" I dare to ask, dare to joke.

He smiles, faintly again, but at least he doesn't get mad at me.

We sit in silence for a moment. Howard picks up his tea and cradles it in his lap, looking at the steam coming off it. I don't know what to do so I take a sip of mine but it's too hot, so I burn my tongue. "Ouch!"

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah… just… hot."

Howard nods. He lifts his own mug up and blows on it. I watch him purse his lips. I want to kiss him.

"The moon may be high, but I can't see a thing in the sky, cos I only have eyes for you…"

Oh, Howard.

"Vince…?" he says, after another minute or two.

"Yeah?"

"Nothing."

"I don't know if we're in the garden, or on a crowded avenue, you are here, so am I, maybe millions of people go by…"

Oh, Howard.

"Vince?"

"But they all disappear from view… and I only have eyes for you…"

"Yeah?"

I don't care if he says nothing again. As long as he keeps saying my name.

"No, it's just… are you okay?"

I feel a bit light-headed, like the jazz is affecting me.

"It's only, you've seemed a bit off… crying in the kitchen, and then hiding under the kitchen counters – I know we'd had a row but we row all the time and you're never like that about it – and then just disappearing to your room…" He breaks off.

I'm not sure whether to feel upset or not about his comments on our rows. He thinks I'm not upset? Of course I'm upset.

Sometimes I want to scream at him, "How can you not notice? I panic because I think I make it so _obvious_, and you never even fucking _notice_!"

But I can't. So I say, "Yeah, I'm fine, Howard."

"Sure?"

"Yeah, course." I grin at him. "You know me, I'm like the Sundance Kid. I'm made of rainbows."

"I prefer Sundance Kid," says Howard. "Rainbows mean rain."

"They mean sun!"

"Yeah, but rain as well as sun." Howard drinks some of his tea. "There's no rain as far as you're concerned. Just sun."

He thinks he knows it all, I think. But I don't care. I'm just glad we're talking – and talking almost normally.

"Anyway, if you're the Sundance Kid I can be Butch Cassidy," says Howard.

I laugh, imaging Howard in a cowboy hat. He wouldn't look too bad. Howard laughs too.

"You are here, so am I, maybe millions of people go by, but they all disappear from view… and I only have eyes, yes I only have eyes, I only have eyes… for you…"

I go to bed that night happier than I've been for ages. Happy? I'm almost aching with it as I drop off. Maybe we're okay after all…

Maybe not.

The next morning, Howard's not in a good mood. He shouts at me because I get up too late. He says he's worried about Naboo. He makes me nervous. I drop a customer's change everywhere. Howard stands behind clutching his hair. When the customer's gone he shouts again. Then he storms out. He leaves me in the shop on my own.

He comes back later, clutching a coffee that he doesn't drink. He seems tired. Again he makes me nervous. I knock over a shelf. Howard doesn't even shout this time. He just looks at me with his devastating brown eyes, as though he wants to say, "Why were you ever born?"

Sometimes I wonder that myself.

There's no cosy listening to jazz tonight. Howard shuts himself in his bedroom. I can play whatever music I want but it doesn't seem that much of a privilege. I listen to Human League. Don't you know I want you?

Next day we're onto day five without Naboo. Howard gives up and tries to call him. He doesn't get a reply.

He goes out again, to buy food. Again I'm in the shop on my own. I feel like I'm going crazy. It seems so much worse now. I'm hearing jazz in my head. I'm almost enjoying it, which must mean I'm really crazy.

A woman comes in the shop. I try to serve her but I can hardly even hear what she's saying. "Yeah," I go, when she asks me stuff. "Nah."

When she's gone, Howard glares at me and tells me not to be rude to the customers.

That night, however, he suggests we get some Chinese.

Perhaps eating together might make things better.

Howard orders. I let him choose what we have, because we don't have much cash and I want to make him happy. It's a stupid way to try and make someone happy, letting them choose what Chinese we get. Even I know this. Of course it's stupid. I am stupid. But what other way do I have of making him happy?

I know what I wish I could do to make him happy. I wish I could take his shoes off for him, rub his shoulders when he's tired, kiss him when things hurt, make him feel…

Oh, God.

My face burns. I have to rush to the bathroom so he doesn't notice what these thoughts are doing to me.

The Chinese food arrives. Howard unpacks it all very slowly, very deliberately, like he's organising it for some sort of ritual. We sit at the table, formally, not the way you're supposed to have Chinese take-away. You're supposed to watch the telly. But I know this is not an option. It would be causing rows when there isn't any need to. We'd never agree what to watch.

I ask Howard to pass me some sauce.

He does.

He gets up to get some water.

He comes back.

He brings one glass.

I go to get myself another glass.

I pour myself some water because Howard doesn't offer. He's too busy with noodles.

The clock ticks.

I try to eat some of my own noodles.

The moon says, "When you are the moon, you sometimes, you see people who are wanting to do things, and you wanna say, yes, you go, you do what you want… I'm the moon, I make romantic light, people don't take advantage…"

"Retard," says Howard, and shuts the window so we can't hear the moon any more.

The flat is very quiet.

It's dark in the room now, because we didn't put the lights on.

I get up to put the lights on.

Howard doesn't react.

I sit back down.

Howard pours himself some more water.

We finish eating.

I gather up our stuff, because I want to make Howard happy. I put it in the bin. I can hear Howard moving about in the living room. The bin's full. I decide to take the bag out. I knot up the top and carry it outside. The cold air hits me sharply. I look down the street and wonder about running off and never coming back.

But I can't leave him.

I go back inside. He's watching some nature programme. I go and sit with him and try to look like I'm enjoying it. Not that he cares.

The clock ticks.

At ten thirty, Howard stretches – the first move he's made for about an hour and a half – and says, "I'm going to bed."

"Okay."  
He stands up.

"Goodnight," I say.

"Goodnight," he says.

He walks out.

Then: "Vince!"

"What?" I ask.

"What's all this on the floor?"

I rush out of the living room. He's standing by the kitchen door. He's looking at spatterings of orange liquid, coming out the kitchen, going down the stairs.

It's from the Chinese. "The bin bag, it must have leaked…"

"Oh, for God's sake!" Howard growls. "Couldn't you have cleaned it up?"

"But –"

Howard storms into the kitchen and grabs a cloth.

"This is so typical! Once again! You make a mess, I clear it up!"

"I didn't even notice!" I protest, close to tears.

"How can you not have noticed? You had to come back up here after you took the rubbish out!"

Of course, he's right. How could I not have noticed?

"I was – I was thinking 'bout something else!"

"Oh, really? Like what? Gary Numan? Topshop? Something important like that?" he snarls sarcastically.

"No! No, I wasn't!" I say, close to tears. "I wasn't!"

Howard just looks at me.

"Howard, don't do that! I'll do it!"

"Oh, no! God forbid Vince Noir should ever have to do any kind of work at all!"

"I didn't say that! I want to do it!" I try to grab the cloth from him but he pushes me out of the way. I stagger. The heel on one of my boots snaps right off. I almost fall over and clutch the wall to steady myself. I start crying.

Howard ignores me. He goes on wiping the floor savagely (a word I got from Howard).

I sob harder. I hate the image of him just wiping, not looking. He doesn't care. He just doesn't care. He hates me. I can't stand properly because of my boot – one of my favourite pairs but I don't give a shit any more…

"Will you stop making that noise?" Howard shouts suddenly.

I shrink away from him but I can't even speak. I retch and choke.

"For God's sake, look at you! Sobbing over a broken shoe!"

"It's not that!"

"What is it, then?"

"You – you –"

"Oh, I get it. It's my fault, is it?" he goes.

"No! You asked the other night what's wrong!"

"What?" He stands up now and looks at me properly. "What?" He comes towards me. I cower back, clutching the wall. He can't touch me… "You hate me!" I go, my voice all scratchy like a broken record because of crying so much.

Howard grabs my arms and pulls me up. I yelp at his skin on mine. "Vince, for God's sake, stop acting like a five-year-old!"

"I'm not! You hate me!" I'm almost hysterical.

"I do not hate you!"

"You keep yellin' at me, actin' like you don't like me…"

"I don't like you when you're so immature and childish! I don't like you when you drop things and knock stuff over and you make everything into such a mess!" He's right up in my face, shouting at me. "I don't like you when you make these scenes and it's twisted so it's my fault, it's always my fault, nothing's ever your fault and it's always just about you, always you, Vince Noir –"

I don't know what to do. I can't think, can't breathe hardly, so I force my mouth against his, meshing my lips up to his.

There's nothing else I can do.

* * *

**Thanks for reading.**

**Oh my God Julian Barratt!!**

**Sorry. I've already burdened stars of andromeda with this once. I will attempt to calm down.**

**violence x**


	11. Chapter 11

**I was going to leave you guys hanging... but then I realised, I didn't want to leave myself hanging!**

**I just want to thank you all for your lovely, kind reviews. You are all making me so happy :)**

**Beechwood0708, I love you too ;)  
But I won't say I love you like Howard loves Vince - not in this story anyway, cos Howard's been so angsty and moody!!  
Teehee.**

**Disclaimer: not mine, duh.**

**Warning: now contains s-s-s-s-slash. I've up-ed the rating just to make sure I don't offend anyone.**

* * *

**Chapter 11**

For a few seconds, nothing.

Nothing.

Howard just stands, his face inches from mine. He goes blurry he's so close. I can feel his breath on my mouth, my cheeks, but he's not doing anything. His eyes are only half open.

My head is white hot and I can hardly see.

I try to push him away. He knows. It's all over, he knows.

"Howard…"

But as soon as I speak he moves. He puts his hands on my shoulders, pushes me back against the wall so hard it hurts. He looks furious. He looks like he wants to kill me.

Then he kisses me.

I freeze and burn.

My fingers claw at the plaster on the walls, trying to escape, trying to anchor myself, I don't know which any more.

He kisses me harder than I ever imagined, even in my most extreme fantasies. His teeth and my teeth meet. He bites my gums. His hands are still on my shoulders, holding me back against the wall, which is good, because I couldn't stand if he let me go, and not at all because of my broken shoe. I try to bring my hands up to his face but he throws them off and then his own hands are on my neck, clasping me against him, and he kisses me all over again, making me gasp and cry out: "Howard!" His hands go to my hair now, running through the layers and I don't care at all. He lifts my hair up, holding it back; he half-kisses half-bites my neck, where my neck meets my shoulders, where my neck meets my chest.

I manage to lift my own hands up again – how I don't know when my brain seems to have frozen – it's almost like my body is just running itself, like this is a kind of reflex like breathing, which is something Howard told me about – Howard!

I find his hair and my fingers tangle in his hair, and he doesn't throw me off this time. He kisses my mouth again, his tongue sliding over mine, making me moan, and he moans too, deeper in the back of his throat. Then he lifts me up, like the way you're meant to lift up a bride at a wedding, only he does it much more violently as though I'm a box of new stuff for the shop he's collecting, but I don't care. He carries me, almost frantically, to the sofa, which is nearest, too far to one of the bedrooms, and throws me on it so hard I almost bounce straight back up again. He looks down at me for a second and for that tiny second, I think he's going to stop, and the world seems to split – but then his hands go to the buttons on his shirt. He tears it off and then he's on top of me again, kissing me again, his hands going under my own shirt, clawing at my chest. I rip my own shirt off – he helps – and press my chest against his and gasp; he kisses me again; his hands go for my belt and so I help him, and when I turn my head upwards I can see the moon through the closed curtains, and his hands are…

Where am I?

Light is burning through my eyelids.

Squinting, I try to see, but I can't.

I stretch out my hand, searching for my alarm clock, or my sunglasses that I think are still by my bed cause I didn't put them away last time I took 'em off, I just left them…

I grope.

Nothing.

I grope more… come on, how far away is my chest of drawers… and then I go too far and I fall off the sofa, almost knocking my head on the coffee table.

The sofa.

I sit straight up. I'm in the living room, which is being filled with sunlight – someone's opened the curtains.

Someone.

Howard.

My head is thumping. I put my hands to my hair and feel it's all standing on end. I'm in my underwear and nothing else. Have I been here all night? All night? Last night…

Suddenly I'm back there again, in the room with the closed curtains, my body jerking underneath Howard's, Howard's hands on my chest, sweeping up over my neck, holding my hips…

I sit down heavily on the sofa.

This should be the happiest moment of my life. Howard and I, together, finally.

But we're not together, and it's not the happiest moment of my life. Part of me, yeah, can't believe it and is shaking at the thought of it and dreaming about it at the same time but the rest of me?

The rest of me knows this is wrong. This isn't how I thought it should be. We shouldn't fuck after a row and then…

Then what?

"Howard?" I call, even though I don't really want to. I don't want to see him.

No reply.

I walk round the whole of the flat. He's not there. He's gone.

I can't even cry. I just feel too stunned. By everything, not just by him leaving.

In the bathroom, I catch sight of myself in the mirror. Hair everywhere. Eyeliner smudged. Lipstick smeared all up the side of my face. I look awful but I don't care. I have a shower, slowly, not really wanting to wash him off me. I get dressed. I don't really notice what I'm putting on (which might be why I suddenly look down and find I've put on a blue shirt with my red jeans, but I can't be bothered to change it. That's how much of a state I'm in).

I open the shop, because I don't know what else to do. Perhaps if everything's normal, Howard will come back and things will be normal again.

But what is normal? Normal like yesterday, when he hated me? Normal like when we first met? Normal with me loving him and getting nothing back?

Even that seems better than this, being alone, not knowing where he is or when he's coming back, if he even is coming back.

What would I do if Howard didn't come back? I guess at some point Naboo and Bollo will re-appear; I don't think Naboo's done anything bad enough not to be allowed home. So it would be me and them. We'd probably all get on better, to be honest, without Howard. Bollo doesn't think much of Howard. And Naboo… well, I dunno what Naboo thinks. No-one really knows what Naboo thinks.

I wish Naboo was here now. He'd know what to do.

Except I wouldn't ask him. I know I wouldn't. I can just imagine it: "Hey, Naboo, yeah, the thing is, me and Howard shagged last night and now he's run off, what do you think I should do?"

Oh yeah. Of course I wouldn't ask him.

I try to imagine what it would be like if it was just me, Bollo and Naboo in the flat, running the shop. But it seems so empty. There'd be something missing, something I don't know if we – well, if I – could function without.

I can't function without him now. It's a slow day anyway but when customers come in, I pretty much ignore them. I'm just back on the sofa, with Howard's arms round my body…

That's where I want to be. That's where I should have stayed. I want one of those snow globes again. The biggest and most beautiful snow globe ever, and I want to lock me and Howard on the sofa up in there. Forever.

But that evening, he comes back.

He doesn't say where he's been.

He doesn't talk to me.

He doesn't realise how much my heart leaps when I hear his familiar footsteps coming up the stairs.

I try smiling at him when he comes in but he just nods rather shortly. He goes into his bedroom. He listens to some jazz. Then he comes out again and puts on the telly. I leave after about five minutes because looking at his hands, his mouth, his eyes, everything, and him sitting on that sofa, our sofa, it all reminds me too much.

I go to bed. It's only about ten. I'm not tired at all but what else can I do? I get into my pyjamas and lie down in the dark.

I don't sleep. I can hear the buzzing of people talking on the telly in the next room.

And then, after about an hour, I hear the telly go off.

I hear Howard getting up.

He must be going to bed.

His footsteps come towards my bedroom – and then stop.

He seems to be standing outside my room.

I feel like I used to when I was a kid and I thought a monster was gonna come out my wardrobe. Waiting. Hiding under the duvet. Trying to protect myself.

Then the door handle turns.

I must look like a kid in bed, as well: duvet right up under my nose.

Howard comes in, very quietly, not speaking. He walks carefully, as though he's worried about disturbing something. He comes to my bed and I sit up. He sits down on the edge of the bed, his weight making the mattress sag sideways. For a few moments we sit. I'm looking at him. He's not looking at me.

Then I reach out and lay the back of my hand against his cheek.

I feel his skin tremble a bit, and he turns to look at me. He bends towards me and kisses me. Not like he did last night. I try to kiss him back but he's awkward, holding himself stiff. When I put my hand behind his back he feels tense.

I draw away a bit, to look at him. "It's okay… it's okay."

I kiss him again and this time he relaxes against me. His hands meet behind my waist and his mouth melts into mine. I close my eyes and concentrate on this, letting his lips wipe out everything I've felt today. I lean back against his arms and we slump down onto my bed, his warm weight spreading out on top of me, the duvet somehow coming to rest over us…

* * *

**Hehe.**

**I don't know where all this angsty stuff comes, I really don't. Must just be my twisted mind...**

**The other one should be updated today or tomorrow. More likely tomorrow because my DVD has FINALLY arrived (!) and I'm gonna spend the afternoon watching it.**

**Thanks for reading.**

**violence x**


	12. Chapter 12

**Right. I know I've been promising updates and then not coming through. I'm sorry. I have writer's block and I'm not feeling at all well. Been getting a lot of headaches, which is always a bad sign for me. Anyway. I apologise and I will try and keep up to date.**

**Lots of angst for you in this chapter! I apologise if the bit in the bed seems a bit over-the-top... I got carried away listening to "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol (which always reminds me of Howard and Vince, and not necessarily in a sexual way... but obviously this time it was in a sexual way. Anyway. Ramble alert, I'll shut up.)**

**Disclaimer: not mine, as you know.**

* * *

**Chapter 12**

That night, while he's sleeping, I prop myself up on my elbow and look at him.

He looks weird against my sheets, which at the moment are bright red and glittery. They're not meant to be glittery, but I'm always covered in glitter so the glitter gets on them.

I look good in these sheets. The red brings out my hair and my eyes. I always look stunning in bed. I sometimes used to think it was a shame no-one saw me there.

Cause I'm not really a relationships kinda guy, you know? I tend to fumble at the back of clubs, if I do anything.

Actually, I'll let you in on a secret. Before this Howard thing happened, I hadn't had sex for three years. Yep, three years and Vince Noir hadn't even had sex. No-one would believe it, right? Everyone thinks I'm getting laid the whole time. I used to try, but it would just be embarrassing cause I'd always end up thinking about Howard. I'd still be able to do it – I've never had to stop or anything – but it just made it worse, cause then I'd drift about for days, feeling guilty, like I'd cheated on him or something, feeling terrible whenever I looked at him. So in the end I just gave up on it. None of the women (or men) who throw themselves at me attract me that much anyway. Partly because I always think I'm more attractive than them – but mainly because they can never measure up to Howard.

So I lie and look at him. He's on his back, the duvet over him so I can just see his head, neck, shoulders and a little bit of his chest. His hair's a bit rumpled, from me running my fingers through it.

_We went three times, and each was better than the last. My room was dark and our bodies were like shadows. I might have thought we weren't real if I hadn't been able to hear his panting and his moans, if I hadn't been able to feel his hands on my body, his mouth running up and down my neck, his hot weight between my thighs… _

_I held onto his head and he didn't seem to notice I was crying on and off. It didn't hurt me at all, that wasn't why I was crying. Over his shoulder I could see the glow-in-the-dark stars, planets and space ships I have on my ceiling. They blurred and unblurred in time with my eyes filling up._

I can see those stars, planets and space ships now. I wonder what it's like in the real space with the Moon? We've flown through there a couple of times with Naboo but I never really had a chance to look. Howard always managed to get in front of it all so all I could see was him instead of all the stars and things.

We could be a scene from a romantic movie, him lying here asleep and me looking down at him. I could certainly be. I could be in some tragic, heartbreaking love story any day. Just the sound of him breathing in my room wraps itself round my heart and squeezes it until I wonder if I'm gonna have a heart attack. His breath, his body, him, in my room, in my bed, feels wonderful – but it also feels wrong, and it feels especially wrong because I don't know how he feels.

Why is he doing this? He had sex with me not after an argument, but like a kind of continuation of it. Then he left me for a day, then he came back, then he sleeps with me again. He never once said my name while we did it. I said his, over and over, like I wanted to reassure myself it really was him and not just someone I'd picked up off the street (like I said, I don't do that any more, but even that seems more likely than Howard being with me, after all these years of him _not_ being with me, if you get what I mean). But he didn't. And when we were finally done, about two hours later I think though I didn't time it, he rolled over and fell asleep.

And now I get what those women's magazines mean when they complain that men go straight to sleep after sex.

If I ever have sex with a woman again, I won't do that to her. In fact if I ever have sex with anyone I won't do that to them. Watching him roll away from me, his shoulder rising up under the covers as he turned onto his side, was hellish.

But now he's on his back, so I put my head against his shoulder. His skin feels good against mine – not good in like a sexual way, like it did earlier, just kind of weirdly perfect.

I can hear a car go past on the road outside.

I think I need my perfect snow globe for this instead. In fact, screw snow globes. They don't mean anything. Nothing means anything except this.

He doesn't know that I'm wrapping my arms round his neck and kissing his face. He doesn't know I'm putting my head on his chest and, like I did in the zoo keeper hut, pretending we're together.

I wish I had a way of telling him how I feel. But "I love you" seems stupid. "I love you" is said far too much.

So I decide just to lie here with my head on his chest and not fall asleep.

* * *

Morning comes, and I guess I did fall asleep, which I hate myself for, because I wake up – and Howard isn't in my bed. For a horrible moment I think he's run off again.

But then I hear him moving about in the flat, and things are okay.

Well, they're not okay, and you know why, but they're better. He hasn't run off.

I don't get dressed. I do style my hair and put on make-up, but in a subtle way so it looks like I'm natural. He seems to like fresh-faced, or that's what he said, but maybe he was just trying to be nice to me cause he thought I was upset…

I go out and he's sitting on the sofa, drinking a cup of tea.

"Morning," I say.

He jumps and almost spills his drink. He groans.

"Sorry!" I say.

He looks at me and maybe something in my expression gets to him, for once, because he holds his hand out to me. I go across to him and sit on the sofa. Then I can't stop myself kissing him a moment later. He seems startled for a second and he pulls away. But before any emotions can even form inside me he just puts his tea on the floor and then he seizes my face and kisses me again. He pushes me back onto the cushions, so I'm flat on my back with him on top of me. His fingers dig into my cheeks, and I've got quite a thin face so I guess it hurts more than it would hurt someone else, or maybe it just hurts more cause it's Howard.

Then he stops and looks down at me, leaving me groping slightly with my mouth, like I'm still searching for him.

"What are we doing, little man?" he says.

I shake my head because I don't know.

He sighs and sits up. I feel like I've just been left on pause. Even when he walks out of the room I don't move for a full five minutes, like I'm still expecting him to come back. But of course he doesn't.

He does that night, though. I almost expect it this time.

He comes back into my room and again all the colours are shades of grey while he's on top of me.

This time he actually looks at me after we're finished.

"Vince? Are you okay?"

Silence. I gasp.

"Vince, are you crying?"

I wipe under my eyes with my fingers.

"You are crying. Vince, what's wrong? Did I hurt you when we…? Vince? Vince, don't cry, come on. What is it? Vince? Vince… oh God, Vince…"

* * *

**By the way, has anyone else heard these rumours about a Boosh movie? I read it on some website yesterday... Eek.**

**Anyway, as I said, writer's block... I am really struggling with the other story but I expect an update will be posted some time this weekend. (Not a promise though, because I don't know if I can keep it.) I'm about halfway through the next chapter but it's taking a long time.**

**Thanks for reading (and bearing with me).**

**violence x**


	13. Chapter 13

**New chapter! Sorry it's quite short but I thought it had reached a logical stopping place.**

**Disclaimer: Boosh belongs to N.F. and J.B. (same initials as James Bond, I noticed recently...)**

**Notes: After the last chapter, I got some reviews saying that things seemed to be looking up. I feel so guilty disappointing you all! The angst just keeps coming. Chapter 13 so unlucky 13... I hope this doesn't make anyone cry (or alternatively make anyone vomit).**

**Also, it follows straight on from the end of the last chapter so just re-read the end of Chapter 12 if you can't remember what was said.**

* * *

**Chapter 13**

"What?" I whisper finally, not looking at him.

"What are we doing?"

I do look up at how genuinely shocked he sounds about it. I would have done anyway, because he sits back. It feels very cold without him lying on me.

"Howard…"

"Oh God." Howard turns away from me. He looks weirdly pale in the dark of the room. "Oh God, I should never have…"

"Howard. Howard, look at me."

He's shaking his head. "Oh God, why did we start this? I should have realised…"

"Howard, please!"

He turns to me with a jump like he's only just realised I'm there. "Vince," he says, his voice low and serious in a way I don't like at all, "We shouldn't have done this."

"Howard…"

He doesn't hear me, I don't think. Or he's just ignoring me. "I don't know what we're doing, getting into this. This weird, twisted thing – I don't even know what it is –"

"Don't say that," I beg.

"It's okay." He seems to think I'm upset cause of what we've been doing. Or he's just ignoring me, still. "We'll just – we'll just stop this. Just pretend it didn't happen…"

"No!"

"No-one has to know. Bollo and Naboo aren't here, they won't know. We won't talk about it and –"

"No!" I shout because it's the only way to get him to hear me. I seize his arms. "No, Howard!"

"What?"

"No, I – I can't!"

He looks at me with a mixture of shock, confusion, worry, concern, everything really except happy things. "What do you mean?"

"I can't pretend it didn't happen! I can't just sleep with you and then act like I didn't. Can you do that?"

"We have to do that," Howard says. "What else can we do?"

"We can carry on."

"What?"

"We can carry on – Howard, I – I can't stop this now…" I kiss him because it's easier to let him know that way how I feel.

His body relaxes into mine and he kisses me back…

But then he pulls away.

"Vince," he says, "Vince, I can't do this."

"What?"

"I'm not – I'm not gay, Vince. I don't – I can't – not with you."

"What?" My voice squeaks and I feel like the tears in my eyes are actually in my throat and drowning me.

Howard jumps up off the bed, pulling away from me, snatching himself out of my arms. "I just can't, Vince. It won't work. It won't –"

"Don't you care about me?" Oh, great, Vince, talk like you're in some sort of romantic melodrama. But I can't help it. I'm crying now, tears burning my cheeks horribly. He's pulling on his trousers, grabbing his shirt from my bedroom floor. I can't bear it. I lunge forwards and seize him round the waist, almost falling off the bed. He staggers and backs away, dragging me off the mattress and onto the floor. I end up hanging on his legs.

"Vince, stop it. Let go." Howard tries to push me off but I hang on, sobbing. "What are you doing?" he asks.

"What am I doin'? What are you doin'?" I get up on my knees so I can look at him better. I grab his hands. "You fuck me and then you just expect it to mean nothing to me; do you think I'm that shallow? Do you think I have no feelings?"

"Vince, this is – I didn't think you would –"

"I'm telling you, then!" A sob interrupts and I have to swallow it down. "I'm tellin' you, Howard. I do. Whatever you think I didn't or wouldn't, I do and I would."

Howard doesn't say anything. He just gazes down at me, mouth slightly open.

"Howard – I love you."

He staggers at that, almost falling over.

I clutch at him. "Howard!"

He manages to get back up. "Vince… Vince, I can't –"

"What?"

"This is too – I need to –"

"Howard – Howard, you can't go… don't go again, please."

"I've got to, Vince… let go of me."

"No! I need you! I always have, you know that. I make messes and you always sort me out, like you said – everything I touch turns into glittery and combusts or something, I don't know – you always sort me out. You got me the job at the zoo – I ran away from my parents to be with you! To be with you, I only wanted to be with you – and you're all I've got! And I've always loved you. I've always been with you because I love you, Howard – I love you and I –"

"Vince, let go of me." Howard tries to push my hands off his legs.

"Don't you love me? You must love me; I love you –"

"Vince!" He finally pulls away from me and I go face forwards on the carpet, almost breaking my nose, but I don't care.

"You do love me!" I shriek. "I know you love me! You said so! When we were tied up, in the Tundra, you remember, you said so! You do love me!"

"Oh God, Vince," Howard says – and runs out of the room.

"No! Howard!" I struggle up and stagger blindly towards the door of my room, out of my room, down the hall, into the living room, no Howard; I hear a door bang – to the stairs, almost falling over the banisters, missing my footing because I can't see – "Howard! Howard!" – into the shop, no Howard; round and round the shop – "Howard, where are you?" – out into the garden behind in case he's gone there but no Howard; back through the shop, crashing into the shelf behind the counter and knocking the whole thing over. I fall onto the ground with stock, stock that Howard must have touched, crashing down around me. I cover my face with my hands. I struggle up when it's stopped falling, run to the front door, open it and the cold wind hits me in the face – "Howard!"

The street is empty.

"Howard!"

A street light flickers.

A newspaper flaps along the pavement.

"Howard!"

The wind whistles round my ears, hurting them.

"Howard!"

Even the Moon doesn't say anything.

Silence.

Silence.

* * *

**Blaaaaaaah!!**

**I've realised that when Vince says "You must love me; I love you" he kinda sounds like Old Gregg. No wonder Howard's freaked out. But I can't think of anything to change it to that would have the same meaning/feeling so I'm just leaving it.**

**Thanks for reading, anyway, and I hope no-one hates me too much now! Let me know you still like me with a review!! (Hehe)**

**violence x**


	14. Chapter 14

**Oh my God... "Bliss" is back!!**

**I am so sorry about these slow updates! I know I keep saying that but I actually do feel bad... it's just I'm incredibly busy with coursework. Anyway, I am gonna attempt to update faster this time... ****Thank you all so much for your lovely reviews, and for bearing with me!**

**And thanks to stars of andromeda for pointing out a small, um, oversight in the last chapter about what Vince was wearing when he ran outside... hehe oops. So I've worked it into this chapter. Thankies.**

**Apologies for the vast amount of angst, and the fact that not much happens in this rather short chapter... angst kind of carried me away.**

**Disclaimer: Boosh is Julian Barratt's and Noel Fielding's.**

**Three words: Noel's SHORT hair!!**

* * *

**Chapter 14**

Howard is gone.

Howard is gone.

---

Somehow I manage to get back inside.

Somehow dragging myself back through the door.

I look at the shop, at the destruction I've caused. The shelf I knocked down is wrecked. The stock is all over the floor. The counter is covered. The till's been knocked over. Things are all over the floor, broken and cracked.

It doesn't help.

---

I realise, back upstairs, that I ran out with no clothes. I don't care.

---

Howard is gone.

---

I feel like I've smashed my own mirror and I'm dragging the shards of glass over my flesh, watching the blood bright scarlet against my pale skin.

For a few seconds, as I come up the stairs, I look in the kitchen and think about the knives.

But I don't want to self-harm. I don't want to die. I don't know what I want.

The whole flat is dark. Like a shadow land. A land made out of shadows.

I go back into the bedroom. The bed is still dented from us laying in it, the duvet pushed back and half on the floor.

It's almost like we might come back.

For a little while I look at the shadows making up the bed.

I want to go to the sheets. I want to bury my face in the pillow where Howard put his head, smell the scent of his hair, wrap myself up in the sheets he was lying on and pretend he's holding me…

I can't.

I can't move.

I can't think.

I almost feel like I can't be.

I don't want to die. I can't die. I'm not real.

Which makes it worse. Oh, doesn't it just make it worse?

I have to live like this.

I have to get used to living without him.

And how do I know that? Because I know he isn't coming back. Of course I know.

The way he ran – he ran like I was the most repulsive thing in the world – and I feel it too, I feel the grime and dirt creeping all over my skin like oil, filth spreading up my legs and over my stomach and arms and to my face, sticking to me.

I feel repulsive.

I am repulsive.

I'm repulsive if he thinks I am.

It's always been about what he thinks. Does he think I'd make so much effort if it wasn't? Does he really think that?

He doesn't think anything about me any more.

Except he does.

He thinks that he hates me.

Hates me.

Hates.

The damp on my face is very cold now, like I'm made of ice.

Why am I even crying?

I should have known. I should have known it couldn't work. I should have stayed how we were. At least he liked me then.

But he didn't like me. Not recently. He hates me anyway.

And I don't know how to be without him.

He's always been in my life. Almost always. Since I was fifteen. Always there. In my life. He is my life.

And now.

Now.

Now he's gone.

I know he's gone.

Maybe he'll come back –

But I won't even think it.

He won't.

I know Howard.

And now I won't know him. He will change without me. He will be gone.

Maybe he deserves it, I don't know.

I don't know.

All I know is he's gone.

Gone.

No…

---

In the morning I wake up on the bed. I can't remember getting onto it. I get up. My head aches.

Howard is gone.

I get up and go to the mirror.

My hair is everywhere. My eyes are red along the rims. I haven't shaved in a couple of days and I'm starting to look like Howard – Howard. I can see veins in my temple, blue in my white face.

I often don't look great without make-up.

But for the first time in my life, I actually look ugly.

I realise I am ugly.

Ugly boy, ugly boy, ugly boy.

* * *

**Eek!**

**Sorry!!**

**I will try to update faster this time. I am already halfway through the next chapter so maybe up in a day or two?**

**Thanks for reading.**

**violence x**


	15. Chapter 15

**I. am. so. so. sorry.**

**Seriously.**

**I did not mean to leave this story so long. But now we're back! We're back! **

**And I'm so sorry this is so angsty, again. This is what too much Joni Mitchell does to people...**

**Disclaimer: not mine. Barrett's. And Fielding's.**

* * *

**Chapter 15**

The door bangs at about ten in the morning.

For a second, I look up from the floor where I am sitting, thinking maybe, my heart racing and my hands going to my hair, just maybe…

Footsteps come up the stairs. Two sets of footsteps. 

It isn't Howard. 

I was stupid to think it was, but then I am stupid, so what can I say?

It's Naboo and Bollo. 

Bollo is carrying the rolled-up magic carpet over one shoulder. 

I should be happy to see 'em, but I'm not. 

I wish they were Howard. In fact I hate them for not being Howard, even though I know Howard isn't coming back and it's my fault and not theirs – Naboo looks like he hates me too. He's got his hands on his hips.

"What the hell's been going on –?" he starts in his little lisp.

And then he looks at me properly. 

His face un-frowns (I dunno if that's a word, but that's what his face does, and anyway I don't care if it's a word. It's not like it matters).

"What?" I ask.

"Vince, what's wrong?"

"Nufing."

"Vince," says Naboo, "I get reports that there's a half-naked man standing in the street outside the shop last night, I come home to find the shelves all turned over, and now you're sittin' in pyjama trousers lookin' like Gary Numan just died."

"And wearing no make-up," Bollo adds. "Vince not look good without –"

"What?" I shout suddenly. "What do you mean, I don't look good without me make-up?"

Naboo and Bollo both step backwards slightly. "Vince –"

"Bollo not mean –"

"Well, it doesn't matter! Because I don't! I don't look good without it! In fact, I look like shit!"

"Vince!" says Naboo, looking shocked.

"I'm ugly! I know and you don't need to tell me! I look like a witch! That's what Howard – Howard – _Howard –_" And suddenly I stagger.

I can't, I just can't. I can't hold it up any more – it weighs too much, all of this –

My eyes burn with sudden, rushing tears, and my knees jar painfully as I hit the floor, and the pattern on the carpet blurs and un-blurs and blurs again in front of my eyes and my cheeks burn – There is total silence from the rest of the flat. I can hear myself gasping, gulping, trying to swallow on sobs, but I'm not really aware that it's me. All I'm aware of is that I'm alone.

Howard is gone.

"Put the carpet away, Bollo." Naboo's voice. Footsteps. Next moment, Naboo squats on the floor beside me.

"Vince?" he says.

I look up at him through the strands of my fringe that have fallen over my eyes. His funny pointy shoes are all like sticking out forwards, and it looks kinda weird. I might laugh, in other circumstances – circumstances is a word I learnt from Howard – Howard – Howard – Howard – 

I retch violently.

"Bollo, get a bucket!" Naboo yells, grabbing my shoulders.

"No, I'm okay…" I struggle away from him, finding the sofa and gripping the edge of it like it might protect me or something. I know I'm not gonna vomit cause I haven't eaten anything since yesterday; yesterday I was too busy gettin' worried about what was gonna happen to us to eat, and then… There's nothing in me to come back out. What was it I once said to Howard? I'm like a beach ball. Empty. Vacuous. Blown up too hard, much too hard, so the patterns strain and get full of white bits from being stretched, bouncing desperately on its too-hard self, close to exploding. And now I'm doin' just that. Except I'm too empty to have anything to explode.

Bollo comes charging in with a bucket.

"Where?" he asks, waving it around.

"You took your time," says Naboo, but he indicates for Bollo to put it down on the floor. He obviously doesn't believe I'm okay. Perhaps I don't blame him. If I could see myself I would see an unwashed, bony little man, hanging onto the arm of a sofa, rocking himself like he's about to die.

Bollo drops the bucket and goes like he's scared of me and feeling guilty, and I hate myself even more because I love that ape and now –

Naboo looks at me. His face is expressionless, as usual, but his eyes are gentle, or at least they are from what I can see, because my own eyes are so screwed up and wet and blurry. 

"Vince," Naboo says, "What's been –?"

"What 'appened to you?"

"What?"

"Where d'you go? You went off, we thought maybe you got detained – Howard tried to call ya –"

"Oh," says Naboo. "Sorry. Tony Harrison's bought a yacht. We all went off to try it out. We were in the Bahamas and then I suddenly get these stories that there's a naked man running around outside my shop. I knew there was somethin' wrong. We 'ad to leave early… the others, they're still out there."

So. He was off ravin' in it up in the Bahamas while I was here, and Howard was here, and we were doing I don't know what you'd call it…

I can't help feeling pissed off. 

"Vince, what's been going on?"

"Nufing," I mutter. Idiotic reply but what can I say?

"Vince." He gives me that Naboo look: the I'm-going-to-have-to-turn-my-back-on-you look.

"It's a'right for you! You can go off on yachts in the Bahamas! I was stuck here in fuckin' London! It rained! Rained the whole time!"

"This isn't anything to do with the weather, is it, Vince?" Naboo asks, still givin' that look.

"Dwarf!" I have to shout, I have to – it's like I can't help it – I can't breathe –

"Insults aren't gonna help, are they, Vince?"

"Look, what are you, my dad?"

"That's Howard." Naboo's face twitches slightly at the old joke, apparently not noticing how he's just carved yet another reference to Howard Howard Howard Howard Howard into me. Then he glances back at me. "Where is Howard, by the way?"

I draw away. I can't speak. Still can't breathe. Can't breathe. Not without Howard. I shake my head.

"Vince?"

"Naboo – Naboo, please –"

"Vince, what's happened?"

"Just – just don't – I can't –"

"Vince –"

"I can't, Naboo! Please, just – just leave me alone!" I leap up. I have to get away from him. Away from his all-too-perceptive brown eyes that will have this out of me – Howard has brown eyes.

Howard.

Howard.

Howard Howard Howard Howard Howard Howard Howard Howard...

---

He finds me later in my bedroom.

"Vince."

"Naboo." My voice is suddenly deeper from emotion. "Naboo, I _can't _–"

He's looking at me.

Those perceptive eyes.

He sees a lot, Naboo. Suddenly I wonder if he knew what I felt about Howard even before all this started.

"It's you and him, isn't it?" Naboo says.

I can't speak. My throat tightens instantly. I just look at him. He gazes back rather sadly. 

Eventually, he comes and sits on my bed. We just keep looking at each other. Sometimes I wonder if he really cares about either of us, but now he seems to.

"Did you...?" he asks eventually.

I nod.

"And...?"

I shake my head.

"Howard...?"

"Ran."

"He... what?"

"Ran."

"When?"

"Yesterday."

"Yesterday night?"

"Yes."

"He just –?"

"Ran."

"And you don't know where he –?"

"No."

Naboo nods.

"I'll see if I can find him."

I look at him.

"The Board of Shamen can help."

"But they're –"

"Oh. Yeah. They're still in the Bahamas. Balls." Naboo turns away for a moment, and then looks back at me. "Look, there are other shamen, not in the Bahamas– that's how I got the message about what's been going on here – I'll get them to look, okay."

I nod.

"Vince. Are you okay?"

I nod.

Nothing else to do.

"If you need anything –"

"Yes."

He gives me a thin-lipped smile.

I don't thank him for what he's done. That'll make me feel guilty later but not now. 

All I can feel now is the endless pain, stretching into eternity, as though part of me – the better part of me – has been torn away, leaving my veins hanging open, shredded halves, in the air.

---

The ceiling is white. The paint hasn't all been done in straight lines, so it's dried kinda swirly, like. Looks like bright white hair. My hair. I've got nice hair, but mine's black and the ceiling's white. White like clouds. White like the moon, oh Howard Moon. 

I'm lying on my bed, pale sun through the window. It's cold outside I think, except I don't know because I haven't left the house in two days. 

No news of Howard, except Iguessed there wouldn't be and hoped there would be.Don't know why because he ran. He ran so, so fast.

But no more Howard.

The air in this room is thin, thin from being drained by emotions. And from me gasping too much of it in when I cried.

I cried on and off all of yesterday, but now I seem to be drying up.

I look at my cloud ceiling.

I tried so hard. What more could I have done? Wasn't I pretty? Didn't I have big eyes, a little pout, a good body, great clothes? Didn't I smile with my teeth on show? Didn't I flutter my eyelashes? What did I do that wasn't good enough? And I love him. Why is that – that, at the very least – not good enough?

I know how to make people want to fuck me violently in alley ways, in toilets, on the back seats of cars. I've seen sex from so many angles, so many positions, so many filthy filthy places. But I don't know to make someone fall in love with me. 

I really don't know anything about love at all.

And didn't I do everything for him? Everything I did was for him. I left my school, my parents for him. They didn't want me to go. My father said, "Vincent, if you go, that's it! You're not coming back here, do you hear me? A zoo! It's so – so _common_! No son of mine should be doing that sort of work!" Like he thought that before the zoo job came upthere was actually a chance I'd be some sort of businessman or somethin'.

So I left. I left because I wanted to go to the zoo and Howard had shown me round and I could communicate really well with the animals – I mean _really_ communicate; I understood what they were saying – and I liked animals and I didn't like me parents much, not my dad at least. Me mum, she calls sometimes. He, me dad, doesn't know.

And Howard.

I left to be with Howard.

Because I loved him, even though I knew nothing about love.

But maybe then I was better. I was sweeter, more innocent. I thought that I could just love somebody, never want anything back, never hurt – just love him utterly – and it would be okay.

Then I knew about colours, and happiness.

Now I've got blacker, and blacker, and my hair has got blacker, and my mind has got blacker, and Howard and I, we've changed since we left the sweet safeness of the zoo. He's got different. So have I. Us, HowardandVince, has got different. I've loved him more and more and I've stopped thinking that just loving him might be okay. Think thatkind ofstopped after he kissed me after that stupid party, but it's got a lot worse since we came to the flat. And now, orthen because _now_ he's gone, we don't talk. We didn't. We couldn't talk without snapping. Like we were trying to get at each other. Or get back at each other. Get back at each other for what? Maybe in my case for himnot loving me. But what about him? What is he trying to get back at me for?

I can't think. Can't put myself in Howard's shoes (not that I'd want to – but God, if it would bring him back I would...)

I don't know what he likes. Don't know why he doesn't like me. I went to every make-up counter I could find. Never found a colour that he thought suited me, that would make him want me. I could probably have gone to every shop in the world and not found one.

At the zoo I knew how to make Howard smile.

I don't know how to do that anymore.

I don't know how to make him love me.

I really don't know anything about Howard at all.

* * *

**Eep!**

**Thanks for reading.**

**Just to let you all know, I am going away for the Easter weekend, leaving Thursday evening and back Tuesday morning. (Grr I'm missing the Boosh documentary this saturday.) So next update won't be until after then. Not sure if the other one will get updated before I go. If this is the last thing I post before I go, just wanted to say another huge thank you for you guys all being so great and bearing with me! And all of you update loadsfor me to read when I get back!**

**violence x**


	16. Chapter 16

**Right! Right right right!!**

**"The Jazz Maverick, the Mod & the Wardrobe" is finished, and there will be a sequel, BUT before that happens, I am going to finish "Bliss"! (And the other one, but that was meant to be short anyway.)**

**I haven't written this for ages, but I re-read back over it and I'm now fully back in the "Bliss" mood... and so, to get us all going again, an extremely angst Vince madness/misery chapter. **

**Dedicated to x Thursday Next x, who has been so complimentary about this story and was so keen for me to update!**

* * *

**Chapter 16**

Drowning. I'm drowning in blackness, sinking, make-up all round my eyes in black circles, hair spreading behind me in the freezing water, and I can't see... I'm drowning... I'm drowning...

--

After thinkin' about me mum a few days ago, she calls me.

She doesn't call too often, cause me dad doesn't know, like I said, and so she can't be too obvious about it. But she calls.

"Vince!" Naboo's lisp cuts into my head.

I've been trapped in me head for the past three days, with memories of Howard. It's not a pretty place, inside my head. When I'm awake I hate myself and when I sleep I 'ave nightmares. No, I'm like a rotten fruit or somethin'. I look okay on the outside, but inside...

No.

"What?"

I don't want to stay in my mind but I don't want to be in the world either. It doesn't feel like a proper world without Howard, who's been gone nearly a week now and no word or anything. Naboo flew round the streets on his magic carpet. Couldn't find him.

I've been everywhere. All his jazz clubs. The Velvet Onion (which was awkward because Bob Fossil noticed I was down and offered me sex "to help you cheer up, Vincey"). Lester's. Everywhere Howard goes.

Bollo made phone calls. Called Howard's parents – even though Naboo told him not to because we'd worry them. Bollo called anyway and they said he wasn't up in Leeds with them. They called round all their relatives. Nothing. Bollo called everyone Howard knows. He even called the zoo and spoke to the new manager, in case Howard had gone back to stalking Gideon or somethin'.

I was so desperate that I would have been happy even to find him hangin' round that woman – as long as he was there.

Howard's parents wanted to report him missing properly, to the police. Naboo said we shouldn't at first, but after a couple of days he agreed. We did it cos he went missin' in London. They took a statement. Asked if there was anyone who might have wanted to hurt him or anything. I thought of Old Gregg and started cryin' and Bollo had to help me out to calm down.

"I can't 'elp it, Bollo," I said, sniffing into this cuppa a nice police man made me. "I just miss 'im..."

"I know," said Bollo, putting his big furry arms round me. He's always there, always so big and warm and safe, and he smells like home (perhaps this is cos the flat smells of gorilla, but I dunno). I snuffled in his fur but for once even he wasn't too much comfort.

"I love 'im," I said. First time I'd admitted that to Naboo or Bollo. "And 'e left cos I'm such a prick... and if anything's 'appened to him cos of it then I... I..."

Bollo rocked me about and didn't even say "idiot" the way he normally does when we talk about Howard, so he must have known how upset I was.

Anyway, me mum calls.

When Naboo brings the phone in I hiss at him, "Say I'm in the shower!" but he deliberately ignores me and announces, "Here he is now", before passing the receiver over.

I give Naboo the evil eyes and take the phone. "'Ello?"

"Vincent? It's Mum."

My mum always calls me Vincent. It feels weird. No-one else I know calls me that. In fact, most of the people I know wouldn't even know who Vincent was. If you said to them, "D'you know anyone called Vincent?" they'd just look blank and go, "No." They wouldn't make the connection. They wouldn't think that Vincent could possibly be that glittery guy they've checked out in bars sometimes and said to their friends, "Mmm, look at him... why's he always with that old man?"

Yeah, I did actually overhear someone say that once. I wanted to smack 'em, but obviously I couldn't because then Howard would have wanted to know what it was about, and if I'd told him it would have all come out. Because we somehow got into this whole thing where we pretended not to care about each other.

I don't know how. We never used to be like that.

God, if I could see him now, I'd just tell 'im... I'd tell 'im everything, everything I feel...

"Hi, Mum," I say, swallowing and trying to do what I always do, make me voice all bouncy even though I feel like I'm shrivelling up inside.

"Are you all right, Vincent?" Of course, she can tell instantly there's something wrong. She is a mother.

"O-of course..." Aha! A plan! "I'm gettin' a cold," I say, sniffing loudly, hoping she'll think this is why my voice sounds thick. "I'm all bunged up."

"Blow your nose, dear; don't sniff," she says, but she sounds quite sympathetic. "I won't keep you too long, then, if you're poorly... how are you? Apart from the cold."

You'd never think she was the mother of a cockney like me, would ya?

"Fine," I say. "How're you?"

"Oh, I'm all right –" And off she goes into this long, long, _long_ story about an Oxfam shop and an Angora sweater. Don't ask. I'm not listening. I've got no idea what she's talkin' about.

After all, all I can think about is Howard.

I still don't understand why he did what he did. He took me away from home, away from my mum who doesn't wanna keep me up too late cause I'm poorly, and then he acted like he hated me – although I guess I acted like I hated him too, and I didn't mean to, but I just couldn't stand bein' round him and not havin' him – anyway, he acted like he hated me, and then he shags me, and then he leaves. And now he's vanished.

If I could see him now... I'd put my arms round his neck and cry it all out on his shoulder and tell 'im I'm sorry for everythin' I've ever done, all that stupid stuff and the messes I get 'im into, and how I'm so grateful 'e put up with it, and how I can't stand bein' apart from him, and I love him... I love him...

Except it didn't work too well last time I told 'im that, did it?

Anyway, Mum goes on for a bit, and she asks what I've been up to, and I say, "Nothing", cause that's what Howard must think it is. And then she tells me that I should get an early night and have honey and hot lemon, whatever _that_ means... and so we say goodbye.

Naboo is lurking.

I thrust the phone at 'im.

He takes it and I go and sit on my bed.

After a few minutes, I realise he's still there.

"Can I 'elp you?"

Naboo shifts about. "Vince... d'you want some dinner?"

"No."

"Bollo's orderin' pizza."

"Good for 'im."

Naboo gives up and leaves.

He's been doing that for the past couple of days. Tryin' to get me to eat. I know he's worried about me. Hell, if I was 'im, I'd be worried about me. I know I'm losin' weight. I 'aven't weighed myself but I know I am. I don't care. S'not like it'll make any difference either way, is it?

I caught Naboo lookin' at my razors in the bathroom yesterday. I didn't ask what he was doin'. I didn't need to. He's checkin' I'm not cutting myself. I'm not – but to be honest I wouldn't be surprised if I suddenly woke up with slashes all up me arms and realised I had done.

Later – not sure how much later – Bollo comes in. He brings a pizza box and ice cream with cookie dough in it.

He's a bit more effective than Naboo.

I feel slightly safer snuggled against his fur. I manage some pizza and a bit of the ice-cream. Bollo pats my head in a motherly kind of way.

I fall asleep against him...

--

I'm going under water... I'm drowning... I'm drowning... my hair coils back into the water, black like water, black and it is water... it's dragging me down, it's too long... I'm drowning... I'm drowning...

--

I jerk awake covered in cold sweat that I think for a moment is black drowning water and Bollo's gone, and my stomach strains and lurches from not eatin' properly for ages and then suddenly gorging – I dash for the bathroom. I make it just in time, but it doesn't really 'elp, cause Naboo wakes up and comes out his bedroom and sees me hangin' over the toilet, and he throws the most enormous fit because he thinks I made myself vomit on purpose. I keep tellin' 'im I didn't, and after about an hour he eventually shuts up and has Bollo take me back to bed – but I'm still not entirely sure he believes me.

--

"Vince," says Naboo, "Some people are here."

He's given me sick leave from the shop – his expression for it, not mine – and I'm upstairs in the flat, not dressed, not washed, not made up, gettin' stubble and thinkin' it doesn't look anywhere near as good on me as it does on Howard. And rememberin' drowning.

Naboo's standing at the top of the stairs, blue and concerned and just _there_, and I'm on the sofa.

"So?"

"So... they're your friends. Those girls you hang out with sometimes, remember; what're their names?"

I don't know. How am I s'posed to know? My brain's covered in ice, anyway, or that's what it feels like. Like anythin' nice and pretty and flowery got frosted.

I shrug.

"They want to know if you wanna come out with them."

"No."

"Vince..."

"No."

Naboo hesitates.

"Me and Bollo'll go if you don't," he says, clearly thinkin' this will persuade me.

"Have fun then."

Naboo goes.

--

I can see Howard. I can still see Howard, everywhere, everywhere I go or look or try to stretch my mind.

--

The nights are the worst, when everyone else is asleep and all there is with me is agony. Agony and the fear of sleeping.

I get up, look at myself in the mirror. Who's that there, in the glass? Who am I? Where did I go? When did I get lost under the make-up, foundation, glitter? And what am I? What did I ever have to lose? I'm nothin'.

It's all lies. Look at me, perfect perfect perfect Vince Noir. But I'm not perfect, I'm disgustin'. I think of how everyone worships me and feel sick. I have photographs of myself in my bedroom. I rip them down. I cut them to pieces, scribble all over them. I hate myself.

In the end, it meant nothing. It meant nothing because I've lost the only person I've ever really loved.

--

"Look!"

"What?"

"It's Vince Noir!"

"No! S'not, is it?"

"Yeah!"

"That's not Vince Noir... Vince Noir doesn't dress like that."

"It's definitely him. I'm tellin' you, it's definitely him."

A hand on my shoulder.

"Hey, are you... are you...?" A girl's big eyes, spiteful bright red lipstick.

I turn away.

"It's him!"

"Oh my God, it so is!"

"He's so much worse lookin' in real life..."

--

I can see Howard. I hear his voice in my head. I see him, I hear him. I want to hold his hand, kiss his mouth, stop it all hurting.

We were together years, years. Now he's gone, but he's taken all those bits of me he loved with him. And that means he's taken all the bits I loved too and now I'm disgusting and I hate myself. I hate myself...

--

I try to lift up my head and the water's crushing it... I go slowly, agonisingly... my lungs burn... I'm drowning... I can see light flickering, shattering, above me but I'm drowning... hands over my head and I'm drowning... I'm drowning...

--

"Vince? There's some people here. Don't you want to go out?"

"No, Naboo..."

"Vince, some guys want to see you..."

"Precious Vince! Bollo got pizza."

"No..."

"Vince..."

"It's Vince Noir!"

"Precious Vince..."

"Vincey, pretty Vincey, I'm your manager but I'm also your friend..."

"Vince, there are some people here..."

"No..."

"Vince, are you eatin'?"

"Vince, where are you?"

"Vince?"

"Vince!"

"Precious Vince!"

"Are you Vince Noir?"

"Vince Noir, isn't it?"

"Vince Noir Vince Noir..."

"No..."

"Vince!"

"Vince, get up! Wake up! It's okay, Vince! It's a nightmare! You're okay, you're okay..."

"Vince Noir, Vince Noir, Vince Noir, isn't it, isn't it, isn't it?"

"No..."

"Isn't it, isn't it, isn't it?"

"Vince!"

"Vince?"

"Vincey?"

"Vince!"

"Vince, Vince, Vince, Vince..."

"No..."

"Vince Noir Vince Noir Vince Noir Vince Noir..."

"Aren't you Vince Noir?"

"Aren't you Vince Noir?"

"Aren't you Vince Noir Noir Noir Noir Noir..."

"Vince Noir Vince Noir Vince NoirVinceNoirVinceNoirVinceNoirVince_NoirVinceNoirVinceNoirVinceNoirVinceVinceVinceVince_"

"No..."

--

I'm drowning.

--

Please, let it be morning. Let the night be over. Let the night be over. Please, let the night be over. It hurts and I'll die. Please, let the night be over. Please, let it be over. It hurts, I'll die, I'll die; it hurts so much.

--

"Vince, me and some of the shamen are meetin' up tomorrow night... d'you wanna come with us? Vince, I really think you should get out the flat... you're makin' yourself ill, Vince..."

--

I'm drowning... I can see light flickering, shattering, above me but I'm drowning... I look up and I can see Howard flickering, shattering above me in the light... he walks away and I can't reach him and I'm drowning... I'm drowning... I'm drowning...

--

When I jerk awake it hurts. I wake up mornings now with headaches, backaches, heart aches. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.

--

I can see Howard.

--

"Vince Noir, Vince Noir, Vince Noir Noir Noir Noir Noir _Noir Noir_..."

"Vince."

"Aren't you Vince Noir?"

I dunno. Am I?

* * *

**Oh my friends, we're back and back to stay! (Well, until this is finished, lol.)**

**Thanks for sticking with it! I love you guys.**

**violence x**


	17. Chapter 17

**Right! Here we go. Let me just say, the events of this chapter I did not plan!! But they came out, and so I had to write them. I'm really, really sorry about the horrible cliffhanger, but let me assure you all, this isn't the end of the story, so who knows what will happen? (Me, hehe. But anyway...)**

**Disclaimer: Mighty Boosh belongs to Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding.**

**A lot of this chapter was inspired by a beautiful song called Liliquoi Moon by Me'Shell Ndegeocello.**

* * *

**Chapter Seventeen**

A month.

I feel like I've got stars all over my face. I can see them when I look in the mirror when I drag myself out of bed – can't bear staying there – and go to the window.

It's really sweat, from being too hot at night, even though I'm freezing, but if I can kid myself I'm beautiful, I will.

Stars, then.

I'm sorry. I really am. I've let go, lost all of you along the way. Mum and Dad. My school friends. All my old girlfriends. Naboo, Bollo. And Howard.

Gazing out of the window, looking up at the sky that's even blacker than my hair, with very very white stars, I wonder if anyone's there. Is anyone still listening? Hello, hello, echo, echo, just my voice and the universe... can anyone hear me? Can you hear me? _Can you hear me?_

No-one hears. No-one will know.

I slide the window up.

Climb out on the ledge.

We've got one of them flat roofs, so it's easy to walk round, up to the point where you can sit and look out at the city.

London looks like the stars came to earth tonight and put on orange make-up. Hovering, twinkling heavens laid out on the ground in front of me.

I climb up and I can feel cool air on my face. It's the first time I've felt anything remotely alive or moving in so long. Everything's been hot, rotten, dead.

I sit against the chimney.

_"I'm not interested in your wife! I'm in love with someone else!"_

Now I feel like the stars on my face are cool; trickling out of my eyes.

_"I'm in love with Howard."_

More stars.

_"Prove it."_

_"All right, I will."_

More stars, too many stars.

Oh, I had stars that night...

_"I'm in love with Howard."_

Stars, stars everywhere. In the sky, on the ground, on my face. Raining all around me.

_"I'm in love with someone else. I'm in love with Howard, with Howard, with Howard, with Howard, with Howard, with Howard, with Howard, with Howard, with Howard..._"

--

Is there anybody out there?

One memory, about a week after we left the zoo...

_"Howard..."_

_"Mm?"_

_"I feel like we've kinda lost everybody."_

_"Lost who, little man?"_

_"Well, after the zoo... and now we're 'ere, and we don't know no-one... I miss it, Howard."_

_"I miss it too. But we'll be okay."_

_"How d'you know?"_

_"I don't... but we've got each other, right?"_

_"Howard...?"_

_"Yes?"_

_"You will always be here, won't you?"_

_"Of course I will."_

_"Yeah... cos y'know, I'd miss you, if you went away."_

_"Yeah... you'd have no-one to get you up in the morning, make you food, organise your life, drag you up off the pavement when you get drunk..."_

_"Oh, shut up! No, I would, I mean it. You'd miss me, wouldn't you?"_

_"Yeah."_

_"Don't sound like you mean it."_

_"What do you want me to do, declare undying love? Recite some kind of sonnet? Sing a song, how about that?"_

_"No... I dunno... oh, forget it."_

_"Oh, c'mon, Vince, don't sulk. Look, of course I'd miss you if you went away."_

_"Huh!"_

_"Oh come now, don't sulk. Vince... look, I know I joke, but you do know you're the most important person in the world to me, right?"_

_"... I..."_

_"No, I'm not being funny. You are. I couldn't cope without you around, you make... you make things fun, you make them exciting. Seriously, I could never get depressed with you around... you're always there, with your eyes shining like stars..."_

_"... is this the undying love?"_

_"It's true; you've got eyes like stars."_

_"Howard, I..."_

_"Shut up now."_

_"Yeah."_

I stand up.

I open my arms, try to embrace London, close my wet eyes and let the air stroke my face. Is it saying, hold on? Or, it won't hurt?

One foot. First foot. Best foot forward. Which foot is the best...?

Second foot.

I don't care anymore.

I want the stars.

I'm cold here.

First foot again, step.

Hand on the chimney.

Higher from there.

I want the stars.

I go up.

Hand over hand.

Foot over foot.

I want to get away from here.

I want to be free.

Free from hurting, free from hating myself.

Free from this disgusting body that I've starved and stuffed and shaved and painted and squeezed into clothes and fucked and injected and plied with alcohol and thrown into clubs and alleys and vomit until I loathe it, loathe it like I do now.

I'm up.

Stand on the chimney.

Black hair against the sky.

Cool air on my face. It won't hurt, it won't hurt. It'll be quick, you will be free, you can fly again like you always thought you were meant to...

Not here. I'm horrible here. Maybe out of this body, free from everything, I can be better. I can be the wind or the rain or the sunlight and maybe I can do some good.

I just want to stop loving Howard.

I can see everyone.

The crowds of clubbers who'll find me.

The ambulance men.

Naboo and Bollo, rushing to the hospital.

Mum and Dad, hearing the news.

The church, not as full as I'd used to think it would be. In fact, not that full at all. My parents, a few other relatives. Naboo, Bollo. Bob Fossil, probably; he loves me. Maybe a couple of girls who were totally infatuated for some reason... but the one person I always thought would be there if anything did happen, gone.

It won't hurt.

It'll be quick.

I want to be free.

I want to be the wind.

I want to forget what it feels like to hurt.

I've got a face full of stars.

I kiss the air around me.

Best foot forward... whoever you are...

Step out, into the air, into the stars... step... _step... step and fly..._

You know... you know... now... now I can really see the stars...

* * *

**Once again, I ask you not to hit me, and I'm sorry if that was all a bit much. Once again: this isn't the end!! So...**

**Merci beaucoup, mes chères Booshters.**

**violence x**


	18. Chapter 18

**Ooh! Look! Updates!! Updates, updates, updates, coming at you like monkeys out of bags of crisps!! (hehe). Anyway, I'm sorry if the ending of this chapter doesn't really work... I'm not entirely happy with it. But still, now I've got the story really moving again! And some lovely Vince torture, yet again. Dear me...**

**Disclaimer: Mighty Boosh belongs to Lord Barratt and Lady Fielding. (runs away)  
The song is "Can't Stop Getting Wasted" - Robots In Disguise.**

* * *

**Chapter Eighteen**

White.

White blinding light.

Humming.

White.

Close my eyes again...

Blackness.

Try to open...

Slits of blinding white...

Close.

Safer closed.

--

"Vince?"

Oh God.

"Vince... Vince... can you hear me, Vince?"

Oh God, no, not again...

"Vince? Can you open your eyes, Vince?"

Trying... I'm trying... so hard...

"Vince?"

"Look, doctor!"

Slits of white...

Shimmering outline of a figure...

Someone bending over me...

"Vince? Vince, can you see me?"

"Uh..."

Is that me?

Is that noise me?

Try to move...

Everything's heavy...

I'm a concrete man.

Face leans forwards.

"Vince... Vince, I'm a doctor... you're in hospital, Vince... you had a fall..."

"Uh..."

"You've been in a drug-induced coma for about a week now, while we monitored your progress..."

What? A coma? For a week? What?

The panic hurts.

Stabs.

"You fell off the roof of your house, Vince... you were very lucky; two girls came past a couple of minutes after you'd fallen and they called an ambulance... if they hadn't been there you might not have made it..."

I don't hear much more.

Failed.

Failure.

Again.

--

"Vince, what the hell did you think you were doin', you ball bag?" Naboo. His face screws up when I start crying. Think he knows he shouldn't have said it like that. Think he doesn't know what else to do with me anymore.

"Precious Vince! Precious Vince, pretty but dumb, what were you doing...?" Bollo. Dear old Bollo, always there, puffing on his inhaler. He's gettin' grey fur. He's gettin' old. I don't talk to 'im anythin' like as much anymore... I dunno why...

"Vincent! Vincent, darling, it's Mum. Oh, Vincent, I just can't believe it..." Mum. Oh, Mum.

"Vincey! It's me, baby; it's Bobby Bob Bob! Look, I've brought you a piece of paper... it's A4... no lines..." I press the bell for the nurse and she gets rid of him.

"A'right, Vince! How's it goin'? Guess what, I met this really fit girl the other night; I mean, man; got 'er number and everything, it was great... do you want those CDs back by the way? Anyway her name's..." Leroy, probably trying to cheer me up in his own simple way. 'Ow can I say that, anyway? Simple. Simple's me. Simple Vince. Useless Vince. Vince who couldn't even die.

"Ouch!" Lester Corncrake, attempting to visit on behalf of the Jazz Club, walking into the wall and knocking himself out. Ends up in a bed down the corridor.

"Vincent. Um, how are you?" Dad. Dad. Not knowing what to say to his disappointing son who he probably wishes had just snuffed it when he had the chance.

"We know Howard would be very worried about you, Vince..."

Howard's mother.

I cry so long after she's left that the doctors threaten to sedate me.

Don't really care anymore, but I stop cryin', and they don't.

This place smells of illness. Death, illness and bad food. I'm not eatin'. I'll be thin and ugly but I'm ugly anyway so, so what?

Gradually, everyone seems to lose interest. Even Bob Fossil stops hangin' around outside and yelling through the window.

But not Naboo and Bollo.

Naboo and Bollo.

They come every day. Bollo brings me porn. Somehow I'm not really in the mood, but I'm aware I should be grateful he's tryin' to make me feel better. Naboo tries tellin' me how things are at the shop, what gigs are happenin' at the Velvet Onion. He also keeps me up to date on the search for Howard. Well, he always tells me the same thing: no sightings. Nothing. Bollo blurts out that the police are starting to wonder whether to change it to a murder enquiry.

That hurts less than I expect it to.

If Howard's dead, I already know I'll kill myself, so it doesn't matter.

I don't care.

I keep thinkin' about the stars, at night, when I'm meant to be sleepin'. Thinking about how it felt to fly from the roof...

Doctors come, look at me. Apparently I damaged my back when I fell but other than that I was 'very lucky'.

Well, haha.

I'm gettin' better though, physically at least.

Naboo's meant to be comin' to take me home. Soon. Soon. They always say soon.

--

The morning Naboo's meant to be comin', I discharge myself.

I'm not sure why.

I just don't want to see him. Don't want to go home. I tell the doctors he's meeting me, but he's not.

I don't go home. I walk. I start walking and I go on walking. My whole torso is agony, emotionally, not physically. I'm a bit unsteady on me feet from bein' in bed so long but I soon get used to it.

I walk, avoidin' Camden. I walk up into the city where the skyscrapers look ugly in the sunlight.

I think about Howard.

If he's dead...

It hits me suddenly.

Like a punch in the stomach, or a knife.

But it doesn't matter, does it? He's gone, he won't come back.

If only I could see him...

I stand on a bridge, look out over the river. It's got hotter while I was in hospital. I guess Naboo must have realised I'm not there by now. I wonder if he'll come lookin' for me.

Howard.

If only I could rewind myself. Rub it all out. If I could see him now, I'd tell him so much. I'd say I'm sorry for the way I treated you, cos I couldn't tell you what I felt. I'm sorry for fightin' with you, stayin' out so late. I'm sorry for makin' you hate me. I'm sorry for everything...

I'm sorry I couldn't tell you how I felt.

I can't make it up now.

But I still love you.

I'll always love you.

You're the love of my life, Howard. The love of my life. No, you're more than that... I know I'll never love anyone else. Ever. Even if I never see you again I'll love you for the rest of my life. I know I will. I'll always be in love with you. How can I not be? I love you so much I could never, ever stop it...

And being without you makes me feel like I've got a dead weight on my chest, crushin' me.

I get off the bridge.

Wonder how long it'll take Naboo to find me.

Shadows are startin' to get longer.

The back of me neck's burnin'. Blistering. Red raw, open, hurt...

* * *

_Can't stop gettin' wasted, uh, I'm outta ma mind... uh, can't stop, uh, gettin' wasted... uh, love it when, uh, I'm, uh... high... hehe. Electro girls. Coooor! The brunette one! Cooooooooor! Eh? Oooh... ooh... headache._

* * *

London at night makes my head spin with all its lights everywhere.

I stagger to a club, craving drink, anything. People crash into me as I stagger across the dance floor. I'm somewhere in Soho. Disco lights, darkness. Get to the bar. Vodka, vodka, vodka, down my throat. The lights spin. More and more. It burns like my neck.

My head starts to lurch. Where am I? Howard. Howard, where are you? And where's Naboo, why's he not lookin' for me? Why not? Where is he? Doesn't he care? Bastard, he doesn't care... "Yeah, another vodka! No, I 'aven't had too much! Fine then!" Out the bar, into another... somewhere in Soho I reckon... neck hurts... I trip on the curb. Fall down and I can feel blood round my nose... dancing lights in the air. Dancing lights... ooh... pretty...

Into another club, more vodka. To another, get thrown out by the bouncers for being pissed. Lurch down the street, someone throws a beer bottle... s-s-s-s-smashes...

Into another bar, girls grinding everywhere, stripper poles wavering... vodka, need vodka... someone throws themselves at me, hollering open mouth wide like the universe and black black black blacky black... red lipstick round the edges of space... wobbling eyes, look like crap, feel like crap...

"Den-man!"

"Awww... I am _wasted..._"

Board of Shamen. Board of Shamen? What? Board of Shamen? Shamen, shamen...

What are they doin'? Gotta get away... what if Naboo's there... what if he's told 'em I'm missing... can't be found, can't be found... toilets, toilets... gaping open black mouth... "'Ello, gorgeous!"... gonna be sick... gonna be sick...

--

I retch violently into one of the toilets for about five minutes.

My legs feel like water, but at least some of the alcohol's out.

But now my head's bein' split in half.

Am I gonna die?

I don't care, do I?

There's groanin' comin' from one of the toilets... two people are fuckin' in there.

Makes bile come into my mouth again. I run back to the cubicle but I don't throw up again.

Baisin's all black and stained... oh god... but I need to wash out me mouth... I try to cup water and it goes all over my face so I feel like a baby, with no-one to look after me...

Screaming's gettin' louder in the toilet.

I look at myself in the mirror.

It doesn't even look like me.

White face, too thin from not eatin'. Unshaved. Almost gettin' a beard. Red eyes, wobbling everywhere. Water all over. Drooling. And cryin', of course I'm cryin'. I'm always cryin' now...

Oh God, I want to die. Please, just let me die.

Please, if there's a God, you must be evil cos you're not letting me die...

Please...

The door of the cubicle flies open and this horrible woman like a devil with her fishnets round her ankles and purple lipstick everywhere and greasy hair falls out, giggling. A man comes out behind her, completely straight, not drunk at all, obviously just enjoyin' havin' his way. His eyes meet mine in the mirror.

Oh God.

My heart gets stuck in my throat and stops beating there.

Oh my God.

I can't believe it.

It's Howard.

* * *

**Eek!!**

**Thanks for reading and being so lovely lovely!!**

**violence x**


	19. Chapter 19

**Finally managed to finish this!! I was trying to do it quickly so I wouldn't keep you all waiting, but I'm afraid this was quite hard to write, and I'm not entirely happy with it, again. Anyway. Here it is, my latest offering.**

**Disclaimer: Mighty Boosh belongs to Barratt and Fielding.**

**Btw, I want to thank you all loads for being so sweet and supportive!**

**And I'm dedicating this chapter to northernbullet for her lovely enthusiasm about this fic. Thanks hun!**

* * *

**Chapter Nineteen**

It's Howard.

Howard.

Howard, Howard, my Howard...

Not my Howard.

He's staring at me.

He recognises me. In the glass, the reflections of his eyes hold the reflections of mine. He looks stunned, horrified... I don't know what he looks...

What's he doing here?

Why here?

And with... with some woman? Who is she? Is she a stripper? A prostitute? Some stranger he picked up? Oh God, what if she's his girlfriend?

As I watch him, the woman, who has been bending over, pulling her tights up, comes to him, claws at his face almost violently. She has red nails. Like a devil, like I thought. I watch her kiss the side of his head roughly. He doesn't react. He just stares at me.

"C'mon, Mister," says the woman, her voice thick and disgusting. She's pissed and vile... and then I realise, she's exactly the kind of woman I meet in bathrooms and alleys.

Worse. She's exactly like me. Drunken, lustful, mindless.

But Howard takes her hand instead.

He breaks the gaze.

No! No, he can't leave me again... I can't lose him again...

I spin round, horrified, tried to grab – the floor's wet – I slip, crash down with a yelp – the hard concrete ground smacks my stomach and suddenly I vomit violently, horribly, everywhere, clawing at the tiles...

And suddenly Howard's back.

He rushes to me.

"Vince!"

I burst into tears, hearing him say my name.

"Who the fuck's 'e?" The woman.

"My... my, he's my... Vince! Vince, I've got you... you're all right, you're all right..." He holds my shoulders, pulls my hair back off my face. He hauls me upright, away from the vomit and filth and away from everything – and suddenly he's holding me.

He's holding me.

I throw my arms round his neck; I can see everything, the voices, the screaming, the nights, the black drowning water, the stars on my face, the hospital bed, the drink – everything, and I can see it flashing in front of me – and the hatred I feel for myself bursts through even harder – so I cling round his neck even harder, harder than I thought it was possible to cling, burying my head in his shoulder, trying to cry it all away – and he's holding me too, the way I've always wanted him to hold me – like he never wants to let me go. So I just hide my face and cling to him, grippin' his shirt and his hair harder and harder, and he puts one hand behind me head and rocks me backwards and forwards...

"Who is he?" says the girl again.

I feel Howard's neck move to look up at her – I hang onto him harder, afraid he'll pull away...

"He's... he's my friend..."

"Whatever." I hear the click of her heels on the floor. The swing of the door. She's gone.

It's just me and Howard, the way it should be. Maybe it shouldn't be in an 'orrible club toilet all over the floor right by where I just threw up all over the floor... but he's stroking my hair again and it's okay...

"Fuck, Vince," he says finally. "What were you doing to yourself?"

I just whimper, hanging onto him. Howard. Howard.

"Howard..."

It's all I can say.

"It's okay; it's okay, I've got you. I'm here." He tilts my head back to look at me. "God, Vince, how much have you drunk?"

I shrug helplessly.

"Vince, I think maybe I should take you to hospital..."

"No! Not hospital again!"

I don't mean to say that.

Howard blinks at me. "Again?"

Oh God.

Didn't mean to tell him...

"I – I had a fall –" I say vaguely.

"A fall? What? How?"

"I –"

"What did you fall off?"

"Off... off the... off the roof..."

"Off the _roof?_ Jesus, Vince, how did you fall off the roof?"

I say nothin'.

What can I say?

Then he realises.

"Oh my God," he says.

I try to hide my face 'gainst his chest again but he won't let me. He holds me at arms' length.

"Vince... Vince, you weren't – you didn't jump off, did you?"

I say nothin'.

I feel like someone's got a razor and is shreddin' up my insides. Stupid Vince. Why didn't you think what it'd do to him, if he found out?

"No," Howard says, shaking his head. "No... Vince... why?"

I start cryin' all over again, and he hugs me. Being in his arms is like being safe. Being me. And not hating being me.

"Why?" he says again, and he sounds all choked up. His fingers dig into my head, tanglin' in me hair. But I like it. Although I hate that this hurts him.

"I just... I got so... I've been in 'ospital... Naboo was s'posed to get me today but I just went without 'im..."

"Does he know where you are?"

"No... I didn't... I couldn't go 'ome..."

"Vince – why?" He sounds absolutely broken.

"Cos of _you!_ I love you!" I shout. Don't mean to shout; just do.

"Vince –!"

"I do!"

"Vince, calm down. Just calm down."

"But I do." I cling to him again and he doesn't push me off, which is an improvement from last time.

"You should go home," he says. "Although actually, I still think you should go to hospital, you look like you've drunk that much."

"No..." I whimper. "Don't take me... wanna stay with you..."

"Vince..."

"Don't want hospital... or Naboo... Naboo wants me to 'ave all this therapy, Howard; the doctors suggested it..."

"Maybe you need it."

"But I –"

"Come on," he says, trying to get me to stand up now, "I'll take you home."

"No... take me anywhere... but not 'ome... not 'ospital."

Howard hesitates.

"Fine," he says. "We'll find somewhere to eat. Get some food in you. _Then_ I'm takin' you home... and no arguments."

I nod.

I'm all wobbly, so he picks me up. He carries me out of the club, carries me like you'd carry a bride, much more gently than that time he carried me to the sofa the first time we had sex. Carries me between clubbers, or through clubbers, can't tell – I think I see Saboo, with Tony Harrison on his shoulder, but I dunno, cos then I hide my face against Howard's neck cos I want to get away from all these blurred images. Now, I notice he smells different. Of cigarettes and booze and some strange cheap-ish cologne thing. But still Howard-y, as well. Underneath all that strange stuff. There's the smell of old tweed and nice-ness and home that's _Howard_...

He carries me over the threshold of the club and off down the road. The lights bounce a bit as 'e walks... but he's Howard, and that's all I care about.

--

We go to a chip shop.

S'the only place we can find open at this time.

It's suddenly really quiet, away from all the screaming and flowin' alcohol outside.

The lights are too bright for this late. The tiles on the floor are pink and blue, alternately. In the big, black, glassy window – kinda like the side of a fish tank – next to our table, there's an advert for a gig or a night at a club or something that reads _Baptised in Formaldehyde_. I look at this while Howard's gettin' chips cos they won't let us sit in 'ere unless we get something.

I look because I can't look at 'im.

If I look at 'im, I'll get all trembly and start cryin' again. I'll start sayin' I love 'im and that might not be good...

Also, if I look, 'e might not be there.

'E might have gone. 'E might have been a dream, floatin' above me like when I dreamed about drowning.

A rattle of a chair opposite me. I dare look up, and he's still there. Holding chips and lookin' rather uncomfortable, much more like Howard. But he daringly gives me a little smile as he sits down and puts the chips in their cardboard container between us.

Howard's smile has always made me weak.

And it all comes rushin' out. Like I thought it would.

"God, Howard – I'm so – I'm so sorry –" And I'm cryin' again, my eyes burning suddenly with hot, stifling tears that pour everywhere, and my face actually hurts it creases up so much.

Howard reaches out and takes my hand (but I'm in too much of a state to really feel that 'appy about this). "Vince? Vince, what's all this about?"

I look up at him, and although the rest of the shop is all misty and floatin' off, he's clear. He's totally clear. I look at his brown eyes; at his hair, which has got a bit longer and a bit rumpled (nice) since I last saw him; at the open collared shirt which is very un-Howard but somehow suits him at the same time; at the increase in stubble which is bordering on becomin' a beard... he's like Howard re-vamped, Howard all sexed-up. But he's still got that Howard look – the look I haven't actually seen in ages – of concern, of worry about me, of wantin' to look after me and kill anyone who tries to hurt me...

"I'm sorry!" I wail. "I'm sorry... I'm such an idiot... I'm such an idiot... this is all my fault... I've been a shallow bitch, I pushed you away and went out and got smashed and left you at home – I'm so sorry, Howard... I'm sorry for all the fights we had and all the stupid times I went runnin' off... I just couldn't... just couldn't..."

"Vince..."

"No!" I swallow hard. "Howard. I only did it cos – cos I love you."

His grip on my hand tightens.

"Howard, I'm sorry. I should have told you... I shouldn't 'ave let it get all bad like it was... I should have told you before... every day... every second... every since I met you, I should have told you... I left my parents because I loved you, left the zoo because I loved you, I did everything because I loved you and I _still_ managed to be a bitch... Howard, I – I know you probably hate me – I hate myself, don't worry, I get it – I'm sorry – I just want you to know – I love you." I choke painfully. "I love you. I still love you. I'll always love you..." And then my voice finally cracks and I have to stop talking because I can't anymore, I just can't.

The shop seems to ring with my voice.

I clutch Howard's hand and only look at the dirty table top.

He clutches mine back.

Finally, Howard speaks.

"Don't..." And his voice is all choked. "Don't," he says, "Don't you think I should be apologising to you?"

I look up at him and shake my head fiercely, cos I don't think that. I should apologise for the rest of my life. I hate myself, I really do, after all that. Sayin' sorry's just made me realise how useless "sorry" really is.

"Well," Howard says, "I do."

"What for?"

"'What for?' For the way I treated you, fucking you and then running out the door the instant you wanted anything more than that. And then... then all of this." He looks down at the clothes he's wearin', as though they symbolise something disgusting. "This."

"What?"

"This... the way I've been since I last saw you... looking like this, sleeping with anybody I found, drinking, taking drugs..."

"What?" I squeak, clutching his hand even harder.

"Not much," Howard says quickly.

"Howard..." I can't bear to think it. "Howard, _why?_"

Howard looks down at our hands clasped on the table top. He reaches out his other hand, strokes the top of mine. It sends shivers all racin' each other up and down my back. Then he looks at me with his deep eyes. I suddenly think, as though it's never occurred (a word from Howard) to me before, that Howard's actually really hot. Those eyes are all moody and intense, and they're lookin' right at me.

"Cos of you," he says finally.

And any risin' heat I was feelin' from those eyes instantly goes cold.

"Cos of... me?"

Howard nods. "Yes," he says. "Yes, I'll be honest with you – cos of you."

"Howard... I'm sorry..."

"No!" he says, suddenly seeming to realise what I think. "No, not that. It's not cos of what you did, it's because..." He closes his eyes for a moment (that feels like an eclipse, with no sun and lightness) and then, again, looks right at me, and if I was standin' I'd have gone all watery.

"It's because I'm in love with you," he says.

A word that I can't even remember faints on my tongue.

_It's because I'm in love with you._

That sentence burns into my mind, into my heart. Words I've dreamed of hearin' almost my whole life.

_I'm in love with you._

Open my mouth.

Still no words.

So I just grab his hand, pull it to my mouth, kiss it... oh God... I kiss his hand again, covering every bit of skin I can find with my lips...

"Vince."

His voice is shakin' slightly.

"Mm?"

"Vince, just..." He pulls his hand away.

"What?" I ask, desperately. "What?"

"I'm... I'm sorry... but what I said to you, that night... you remember... that I'm not gay... it's true. I'm not."

"But you just said –!"

"No, Vince. I am in love with you – I don't know how, I don't know why, but I am... but it's... I want to be with you... when we were together before, it felt right, but it's..."

"What?"

He sighs. "Vince... you need sorting out, you need help... I'm thinking I should take you right back to the hospital."

I consider this.

"I don't mind if you stay with me."

"I'm never going to leave you again," he says.

I hear my breath catch in my throat.

"I don't feel real without you."

"Howard –"

"No, Vince. I just – I'm sorry but I want –"

"S'okay... if you need time... I can – I can wait..."

"And I don't think, if you're having therapy and stuff... I don't think it's the right time..."

I nod.

"I do want it."

I lean across the table and kiss him.

I expect him to push me away but he suddenly puts his hands behind my head and kisses me back. He kisses me back, and I think I can Heaven in the purple-and-pink flashes on the dark behind my eyes... and I can feel the heat of his lips...

When we pull apart we're both breathin' a little hard.

"I'm taking you home," Howard says.

I nod weakly, whimpering slightly against 'is mouth, which is still very close to mine.

"I love you..." I mumble.

He doesn't say it back – but he gives me another kiss, a quick one, and then stands up. He gets me to put my arm round his shoulder and 'elps me out the shop.

"Howard..."

"What?"

"We never ate them chips."

"I'm sure the people in the shop will get over it."

Yeah. They probably will...

* * *

**Well, there y'are! There will probably only be a couple more chapters of this!! Weird, as it's been going so long... I'm gonna miss it!**

**Thanks for reading anyway.**

**violence x**


	20. Chapter 20

****

I know I said I might not update again before my exams finish, but, well, I have! (In case you hadn't realised, lol.)

**Disclaimers:  
Mighty Boosh is owned by Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding.**

**Author's notes:  
This follows right on from the next chapter.  
There are quite a lot of flashbacks! The flashbacks during the dream are from Chapter 13, when Howard ran away, in case anyone can't remember.  
This chapter is once again VERY angsty, just to warn you. I hope you don't mind! I actually planned for things to start getting better in this chapter, but in light of, shall we say, "recent events", this emerged instead. I think you'll all know what I'm referring to...**

**This chapter is in honour of Julia (northernbullet)... it's bribery to make her update her brilliant fic "Howard's Odyssey" faster. **

* * *

**Chapter 20**

In the end, it's not Howard that takes me anywhere.

Halfway down the street, we get found by Saboo and Tony Harrison. (I was sure it was them in that club.) They tell us Naboo told them I was missin'. They offer us a lift. Howard agrees. He tells 'em to take us to the 'ospital, but I don't care anymore. I'm so tired...

Howard holds me all the way there. I lean against his chest. His arms are round me, all protective. The carpet sways about and I start feelin' sick, so I lean against him. I wish I could just... just sleep...

I'm vaguely aware of bein' carried somewhere, of footsteps hittin' the floor urgently, of voices. Howard's voice – I think I'd always be able to hear Howard's voice, even if I was dead – and some others that aren't Howard.

And then I'm bein' carried – or am I flyin'? Am I going to the stars after all? Is Howard coming too? I can't go without him... Howard, where are you? You have to come, Howard... _Howard..._

--

_"What are we doing? ... We shouldn't have done this... I don't know what we're doing, getting into this. This weird, twisted thing – I don't even know what it is – we'll just – we'll just stop this. Just pretend it didn't happen… No-one has to know. Bollo and Naboo aren't here, they won't know. We won't talk about it and –"_

_"No, I – I can't!"_

_"What do you mean?"_

_"I can't pretend it didn't happen! I can't just sleep with you and then act like we didn't. Can you do that?"_

_"We have to do that; what else can we do?"_

_"We can carry on – Howard, I – I can't stop this now…" _

_"Vince, I can't do this."_

_"What?"_

_"I'm not – I'm not gay, Vince. I don't – I can't – not with you."_

_"I just can't, Vince. It won't work. It won't –"_

_"Don't you care about me?"_

_"Vince, stop it. Let go." _

_"Howard – I love you."_

_"Vince… Vince, I can't – This is too – I need to –"_

_"Howard – Howard, you can't go… don't go again, please."_

_"I've got to, Vince… let go of me."_

_"Don't you love me? You must love me cos I love you –"_

_"Vince!"_

_"You do love me! I know you love me! You said so! When we were tied up, in the Tundra, you remember, you said so! You do love me!"_

_"Oh God, Vince..."_

_"No! Howard! No!" _

_"Howard!"_

_"Howard!"_

_"Howard!"_

_I'm drowning... I'm drowning..._

I jerk awake, sitting up straight, so hard I jar me back, but it couldn't hurt as much as Howard not bein' here...

There's a nurse standing over my bed. "It's all right," she says. She hurries round to give me some water. "It's all right. Just a bad dream. It's all right. You're all right."

Me hands shake so much I can hardly hold the glass. Now the shock of waking is wearing off, I am becomin' vaguely aware of a burning pain in my stomach. "What... what 'appened?"

"You've had to have your stomach pumped, dearie," the nurse tells me. "You were quite bad, actually. You really should have been brought to hospital sooner... why you hadn't started collapsing earlier we're not sure..."

"What?"

"Don't worry," she tells me, comin' round to fluff up the pillows. "You're gonna be just fine. Just fine."

"Howard...?"

"Hmm?"

"Howard... where's Howard?"

"Who's Howard, dearie?"

"Oh, he's my..." My best friend? My boyfriend? "He brought me in," I say vaguely.

"You mean the rather delicious man with the feathers on his hat?" she asks, grinning.

"Oh," I say. "No... the one with the moustache..."

She looks blank. For a moment I think it's just Howard's strange ability to make people forget him (something I've always wished he could pull on me as well as he does on everyone else; the entire world forgets him but he's forever burnt into my mind...) and she'll realise in a minute that I mean the other person there – but she doesn't seem to.

"He was... he was carryin' me?" I say, more asking than telling, because to be honest, I have no idea what happened when they brought me in. I was out of it by that time.

She still doesn't seem to register.

Getting slightly desperate, I try something else: "I was in 'ere before... my two other friends... Naboo and Bollo... are they –?"

"Oh, the short-ish man? Yes, they've been around. In fact, they're here at the moment, talking to the doctor. I'll go and tell them you've woken up if you like..."

--

About twenty minutes later, Naboo and Bollo appear.

"You really are a ball bag, Vince!" says Naboo, the instant the nurse leaves. "What the 'ell did you think you were doin', wanderin' off like that? Do you 'ave any idea how worried we were when –?"

"Howard," I say.

"What?"

"Howard. Where's Howard?"

"Vince –" Naboo snaps, clearly angry I'm not listening' to him. But I don't care.

"Where's Howard?"

"Howard at home," Bollo says.

I slump with relief. I was terrified they'd say he'd vanished again.

But then I'm confused. "Home? Why's he home? Why isn't he –?"

Naboo rolls his eyes. "Okay," he says. "Bollo and I –" This means just him "– decided that it would be better not to 'ave Howard around here, what with you two bein' so mixed up about each other."

I nod.

I don't say that this was ridiculous.

I don't say that I can hardly even breathe without Howard, so how could recovering from a serious alcohol overdose be easier without him around?

Naboo is still looking angry. Bollo is looking rather awkward.

"Naboo...?" I start.

"What?" he says, folding his arms.

"I'm sorry."

Naboo just makes a faint "Humph" noise.

"The doctors say you'll be able to come home soon," he says. "They know I can look after you."

"How?" I ask. I mean, Naboo can look after me, prob'ly better than the doctors, but I dunno how they know this. Naboo doesn't really like to advertise the fact that he's a shaman. He always says that if people knew, he'd get weirdos queuing round the block wanting cures for baldness or help in their miserable love lives.

"I told 'em I have medical training," Naboo says. "Magicked up some fake qualifications."

I just nod again – partly because this is such a Naboo thing to do that I'm not really surprised, and partly because he's still looking extremely annoyed with me and I don't want to piss him off anymore.

"Anyway," says Naboo, "We'd better get home."

That smacks hard. When I was in before, he used to sit by my bed for hours just so I'd have someone with me.

"C'mon, Bollo." Naboo gives me a nod and walks out.

Bollo dithers. He looks at me sittin' miserably in my bed – no Naboo. And no Howard. No Howard.

"Vince can come home soon," he says brightly.

"Yeah," I say, not sure I'm actually lookin' forward to it now that Naboo's hardly speaking to me.

"Vince better at home," says Bollo. "Vince can sit on sofa, watch cartoons and Rocky Horror Picture Show all day long."

"Yeah..."

"Bollo make Vince tea and fairy cakes."

I can't help smilin' at that.

Oh, Bollo. Dear old Bollo. Always there, always loyal.

"I'd like that," I say.

Bollo looks at me. "Naboo not really angry at Vince," he says. "Naboo just very worried when Vince disappear. Bollo never see him so crazy."

"... really?"

"Yes. Bollo worried too, of course." He hesitates. "Vince... Bollo not like Howard, but... now he home, Bollo see... Howard very worried about Vince."

"Is he?"

"Yes. Everyone worried about Vince. Not want Vince killing himself."

Okay, this isn't the most tactful way of puttin' it – but it's Bollo. He's the least tactful being on the planet. I'm used to it. My eyes do fill up – but it's not what he's said.

He hugs me and I hug him back. I remember, once more, how much he smells like home.

I miss home.

I want to go home.

--

After they've left, I lie on my side in the overpowerin' white of the bed sheets. Far too much white. White. This hospital seems to be made entirely of white things. I've seen enough white to last me a lifetime. White is fine, of course, in moderation, when complimented by other colours...

But to be honest, I'm not really up for thinkin' about colour combinations involvin' the colour white.

I'm more thinkin' 'bout what Bollo said.

_"Everyone worried about Vince. Not want Vince killing himself."_

And I welled up.

Like I said, that wasn't cos I didn't like what he'd said or anythin'.

It was cos it reminded me of somethin' else. Somethin' that happened... almost a year ago now. Can't remember. Me memory's desertin' me. Maybe it just wants to get away from me. A lot of things do. Or maybe, I'm just gettin' old.

Anyway, it reminded me of somethin' Howard said.

He said, "You're killing yourself, Vince."

The reason he said this was because, in a less extreme way than I 'ave been these past few weeks, I was. It was... God, it was a three-day drinkin' spree with a bunch of Camden people. It can't really 'ave been three days, can it?

It was.

Three days. Drinkin'. Smokin'. Takin' drugs. I don't think I ate properly. We all just started and didn't stop. We fell asleep and we'd drunk so much we woke up still pissed and just carried on. Three days.

Three days and I was in this alley way in Dalston, finally tryin' to get home, lost even though it turned out I was only two streets away from home.

I can remember it, that alley. If I close my eyes it's like I'm not in this hospital bed, which isn't the comfiest but holds me firmly – I'm there instead...

_The sunlight was too bright. Far, far too bright, and it glinted off the black bin bags, angrily, violently, scrapping along my eyeballs like sandpaper._

_I was staggerin' in my heels, cursing them, cursing the world. My head roarin' and screamin'. Still drunk, but starting that hellish process of becoming sober. Knowing I looked ugly and hating that. Hating the feeling. Asking myself why I'd done it. Cos it was fun. No, not that. Cos... cos I couldn't stop. I was out of control. I was pissed, yes – and I couldn't stop it. My mind screamed no but I went on, like my body wasn't really mine anymore._

_The sun was too strong, too early, too horrible, and I almost fell in my boots. Pain exploded in my skull as I did. I clutched the wall of the alley to steady meself, and scraped my hand. When I looked, blood oozed through lines of tears in my pale skin, over the dirt that stained my cells, I wasn't quite sure where from, but it was there..._

_Suddenly I started crying._

_I just sat down in that stupid alleyway, next to a pile of black dustbin bags that were attractin' one hell of a lot of rubbish, and cried and cried. I'm normally a pretty crier, or at least that's what I tell meself – but there was absolutely no way I could kid myself that mornin' that I looked pretty in any way at all. Not even like an enticing, tragic waif. I 'adn't washed me hair in three days, I 'adn't changed my clothes, 'adn't shaved; I'd hardly slept. I cried harder and my head thundered like I had one of those gigs I go to goin' on inside it. It was too hot, and I didn't know where I was, and I just wanted home._

_Home, and Howard._

_Howard, the man I loved, who was so different from all the drunkenness, so different from all those people will their smells of sex and sweat and booze. I sat and sobbed and wished he'd come and get me, but of course he didn't. He had no clue where I was. So I just cried even harder._

I think that's really the first time I properly hated myself.

_I looked down at my trousers, filthy, with beer stains, and white patches that looked suspiciously like I'd been gettin' off with a guy I didn't even remember at some point. Looked at my hands, one still bloody, both filthy. Touched my hair, felt the grease._

_I was a wreck._

I only ever cared what I looked like, you see; it was all I 'ad. And now I looked disgusting – and that was bad.

_I made myself gag._

_I felt disgustin' just being in my body. I started clawin' at my hair, still cryin', every breath hurtin', tryin' to pull my own body off down there by the rubbish sacks. I felt like I was pourin' into shards of filthy glass and each one was tearin' me to pieces, cuttin' me, so my whole body bled like my hand. They poured down onto the pavement and eventually got taken off with the trash._

_Who am I? When did I get like this? How does someone's cute little baby, their pride and joy, become a broken-down train wreck in the street, sobbin', half-drunk half-dead?_

_I can't go on like this. I can't live like this, I hate this body, the feel of it. I don't even know who I am anymore._

_I got up eventually and tried to move, to sprint, to get somewhere, anywhere. I came hurtlin' out of that alley and these two women walkin' by shrieked like they thought I was gonna murder them. I didn't blame them, and that made me cry even harder. I tried to run away, like I wanted to run right away from myself and just get to Howard, but I was lost and didn't get too far cos I was still cryin'._

Fortunately for me, like I said, it turned out I was only a few blocks from 'ome, so Bollo found me and brought me home.

It was when I got there that Howard said, among other things, "You're killing yourself, Vince."

He had been practically goin' mental with worry about me. Well, I 'ad been missin' for three days. Bollo told me later that he'd thought of callin' the police, but that was after I'd finally slept off all the substances and cleaned myself up, and I was so nervous about Howard carin' about me, and so desperate, and so... gone... that I didn't do anythin'. And I went on drinkin'.

I'm cryin' again.

The tears run in hot lines down the side of my face, straight into the pillow, makin' it wet by my hair.

I think I've been sick my entire life.

Now they know. Now they want to make me better.

I dunno if they can.

If I could get better, I might know how I got the way I am. How I got from cute little baby Vincent, happy-go-lucky child Vince, popular teenage Vince, cheery zookeeper Vince, to this. The broken-down train wreck who sits sobbing in streets and jumps off roofs. Who's killing himself.

Then I think about Howard.

_"__I couldn't cope without you around, you make... you make things fun, you make them exciting. Seriously, I could never get depressed with you around... you're always there, with your eyes shining like stars."_

_"I'm in love with you."_

Maybe if I got better, he might want to be properly in love with me. Maybe he couldn't love me properly cos I'm so sick.

I don't know, but perhaps, makin' myself better, pickin' the shards back up, might not be such a bad idea...

* * *

**A little bit of hope for you after all that abject misery.**

**I thought that needed to be written, though. I only hope you guys enjoyed it! I don't know how well I handled the street scene, as I've never been on a three-day drinking spree, and although I have once sat crying on a pavement, it was for very different reasons. But anyway.**

**Thanks for reading!**

**violence x**


	21. Chapter 21

****

As promised, an update!! In celebration of the end of exams... yay!!

**I'm terribly afraid that I think this chapter is a little boring. I think it's okay writing-wise, but not that much happens. Sorry. More will happen in the next one! I'm actually feeling very inspired for the next one so I will start writing it pretty soon. Who knows, there may even be another update tonight/tomorrow morning!**

**Don't pin all your hopes on it though, lol.**

**Anyway.**

**Disclaimers:  
Mighty Boosh belongs to Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding.  
"I Only Have Eyes For You" - well, I have no idea who that belongs to, but it isn't me. It's the song Howard and Vince listened to in Chapter 10, in case you've forgotten. I do actually kind of say that in the story, but that's just in case you couldn't remember when the event Vince talks about occurs.**

* * *

**Chapter 21**

I go home two days later.

Naboo comes and gets me. He looks kinda nervous as he walks in, like he's worried I'll have run off again. Not like I could have done – there's a nurse practically chained to me side the entire time to make sure I don't. And they're under strict instructions not to let me leave unless I'm with Naboo.

Naboo arrives and they discharge me.

We fly home in silence.

Part of me is quite touched that he's takin' me on the carpet, cos I know he's not supposed to use it unless it's for a noble cause as he puts it, and although he uses it for 'imself all the time, 'e hardly ever uses it for me – or for Howard – unless it's for a very serious reason.

But then I think that must mean I'm a very serious reason, and I get all cold. I sit curled up on the carpet until we get home. Naboo doesn't look at me. He sits very still, cross-legged, like 'e's meditatin'.

We got 'ome, and Naboo tells me to go inside while he rolls up the carpet. "Bollo will 'ave some food ready for you," he tells me. "Leave your stuff, I'll bring it."

"Cheers, Naboo," I say faintly. I don't know whether I'm sayin' cheers for bringing my stuff, cheers for gettin' Bollo to have a meal prepared, or cheers for... just for everything, really.

He doesn't acknowledge me. He just starts rollin' up 'is carpet. I feel terrible. I know that 'im ignorin' me is only cos he doesn't really know what to do with me anymore. I'm meant to be goin' back to the hospital soon, to see a psychiatrist, but I can tell from the way 'e's actin' that he doesn't know if it'll work.

'E's not the only one.

I go up to the door and start unlockin' it – and suddenly someone pulls it open from the other side – and it's Howard.

Oh God.

He freezes when he sees me.

Seein' him suddenly makes me realise how wrong I've felt without 'im there.

For a few moments, which might also be a few years, we gaze at each other – his brown eyes seemin' to dive into mine, go straight inside my soul and swim there.

I don't know 'ow he does it, but he makes 'imself such a big part of me that at this moment, standin' in the afternoon with the sun lighting up the slants of his face, I feel like I'm more him than I am me.

And I can't breathe.

But then Naboo finishes rollin' up the carpet, and comes up to the door and sees what's goin' on.

He takes my arm and leads me past Howard.

We leave Howard standin' by the door. When I glance back I see him still lookin' out, like 'e hasn't noticed I'm not there anymore.

--

Bollo has made food.

It's probably not what most people would describe as a meal – it's certainly not what Howard would call a meal – but when I see what's he's done, I nearly start cryin'.

He's made those fairy cakes.

He comes bustlin' out of the kitchen in his apron, like an ape-mother (only male, of course), sees me about to start sobbin' over his home cooking, and says, "Bollo made fairy cakes for precious Vince." Then he looks at me and says, "Vince not happy?"

I give him a fierce hug. He hugs me back. He makes me feel so safe.

Naboo doesn't do anything. He never seems to know what to do in emotional situations.

As I pull away from Bollo, I see Howard comin' up the stairs. He looks strange. Like... like he's jealous. Almost. Or maybe I'm just tellin' myself he looks that.

--

The hospital have told Naboo I need to rest, as I'm still recoverin' from the stomach pumpin' – and because I need a lot of lookin' after cos I'm in what they call "emotional turmoil". I heard one of the doctors tellin' Naboo that they're expectin' a diagnosis of depression when I see the psychiatrist.

It's almost funny, in a very weird way – me, the happiest person in the world (or so everyone thinks), bein' depressed.

Naboo gets me set up on the sofa, rather awkwardly because he still doesn't seem to know how to react to me, and checks my stomach.

Then Bollo takes over. He gets me all wrapped up in a blanket and brings me fairy cakes. I can't 'ave too many cos my stomach's delicate, but Bollo knows this. Anyway, somehow I don't feel hungry. I nibble carefully, and look around the flat.

It's good to be home, I suppose. At least I'm away from all the doctors and the intense white here.

But I can still feel this sick, tired body. And part of me still wants to sleep. Up in the stars. Forever.

Naboo spends most of the day in his bedroom. Bollo keeps comin' back to check on me.

Howard doesn't come back. I dunno where he is. But I almost feel too exhausted to long for him now.

Almost.

Evening comes and out the window, I can see the stars startin' to reappear on the ground.

And then Howard comes out too.

He doesn't say anything. In fact, I don't think he even knows I know he's there, cos he comes out his room in silence, but I hear the handle turn. And I can feel, from this strange pricking anticipatin' feeling in my back, that it's him, cos he's the only one that ever makes me feel like that.

I turn round.

He's walkin' across the hall towards the stairs.

"Howard?"

He spins round, lookin' actually quite scared. But maybe I just took 'im by surprise, cos when his eyes settle on me, he relaxes a bit.

"Where you goin'?" I ask.

"I was just going –" He hesitates.

"Goin' where?"

"Oh, you know..." But I don't know.

"Are you goin' out?"

He looks almost relieved. "Yes," he says.

I feel a slight jolt in my stomach.

After what he said in the chip shop, I had kind of expected things to be... well, different.

Well, they are different. But not in the way I expected. Now he seems almost frightened of me. He's looking at the stairs, as though he really wants to run down them.

"Out where?" I ask.

"Um... well, nowhere..." he admits. "Just for a walk..."

"Can I come?" I ask, even though I know I'm not really meant to go out.

Howard knows this too. His face looks torn. Torn between knowing I should stay in and... wanting me to come?

"Or you could..." I'm not sure how to put it. "You could watch the TV with me, if you like..."

God, this is ridiculous. This is me and _Howard_. We shouldn't be feelin' so awkward around each other. We're best friends.

But now I feel as terrified as if he's someone I hardly know and I'm askin' him on a date.

There's a pause.

Then, Howard says, "Okay."

I know it's stupid to feel so happy.

I know that.

But my insides can't help singing out with joy. In fact, I feel so happy I actually wonder if my guts might break out into the Hallelujah chorus for everyone to hear.

Of course, that doesn't happen. All that happens is that Howard comes and sits next to me on the sofa.

He looks quite nervous about it. But the sofa sinks down under his familiar weight and it feels so like home – so like all those nights, before it all went wrong, when we used to watch the telly together and laugh and eat take-aways and... well, and just be _us_.

We're not us tonight. We're not Vince-and-Howard. (Which is what everyone else thinks. I generally think of us as Howard-and-Vince, cos Howard comes first. For me, at least.)

But at least he's with me on the sofa.

--

That night, I start feeling guilty about makin' it awkward. Cos if I had just held my stupid tongue and hadn't told him I loved him, then we wouldn't be in this mess.

But then again, what would we be doin'? Would we still be shaggin' randomly, like we were those few days before I said it? I don't think I'd want that either.

I don't really know how we got like this, to be honest.

When I get to sleep, I dream. But I don't dream about drowning.

Instead, I dream about Howard, standin' in the middle of a field with a fence all round it, and the field looks like a chess board. I'm tryin' to play the game to get to him but I don't understand the rules of chess so I'm stuck on this square. Naboo and Bollo are there, playin' the game and smokin' hookah. Bollo waves to me and says, "Precious Vince better at home. Bollo make fairy cakes. Vince watch Rocky Horror all day long" – but when I call out to 'im, and ask 'im how to play, he ignores me. There's also this man perched on the fence at the opposite end of the field, perched like a bird. He's smilin' to himself and he's got feathers on his back and diamonds under his eyes. I call out to ask him if he knows the rules but he just starts singing, in quite a high, pained but still gentle voice, "_You are here, so am I, maybe millions of people go by, but they all disappear from view, and I only have eyes, I only have eyes, for you..._"

It's a very weird dream, but at least I don't jerk awake shaking and sweating. I sleep right through the night. I suppose this is an improvement.

--

Next morning, Naboo gets me settled back on the sofa. He gives me some more painkillers. Bollo makes breakfast. Howard brings it to me.

"Howard?" I say.

He looks rather apprehensive. "Yes?"

"There's a song..."

"What song?"

"A song, that goes..." I sing the song I heard in my dream. "What song is it?"

He's lookin' at me. His eyes look rather big.

"It's called, I Only Have Eyes For You, and..."

But I don't listen. Because now I remember when I heard it before. It was the song Howard was playin' the night we talked about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The last night we were really Vince-and-Howard. Howard-and-Vince.

I don't tell him this though. I just nod, vaguely, and watch as he goes back into the kitchen.

--

Word starts to get around – how I'm not sure – that I'm home.

That day, there are at least ten phone calls from people wantin' me to come to clubs, bars, gigs with 'em.

Naboo and Howard always take them. I can tell, though, from their faces and the way they speak, what people are askin'.

It makes me feel quite sick.

Is that all I am? Clubs, bars, gigs? A face at events? Someone people want at their parties?

Yes.

Yes, it is.

Cos after a few days, when they find I won't come, they stop callin'.

The others all stay around though. Bollo brings me tea, leftover fairy cakes, chicken soup, more tea.

Naboo comes to check on my stomach. He gives me some shaman drink to take away the ache and make it easier for me to eat.

And Howard.

Now, Howard sits on the sofa next to me.

He doesn't watch the television when I flick through the channels. Well, to be honest, I'm not watchin' it either; I'm just hopin' for somethin' to do.

The stars appear on the ground every night. It's like the Milky Way has fallen onto the ground and come to rest where London used to be, before it got destroyed by the collision, of course.

I don't have my dream again, although I remember the song.

The night before I'm due back at the hospital, Bollo has to DJ. Naboo goes with him.

Bollo doesn't want to go. He flaps around for ages before they leave, making sure Howard knows where my painkillers are and what to give me for supper and what time I should be in bed.

"We'll be late, Bollo," says Naboo.

Bollo is worried about me. About his "precious Vince".

I appreciate this. I give him another hug. That seems to be the only way to show my gratitude at the moment for things. Hugs. It's like words have left me.

Not, I suppose, that they were ever really there in the first place. I've never been very deep-and-meaningful. To be honest, I'm not really sure how to be.

Howard gives me food. He gives me painkillers. We sit on the sofa together.

After a while, I fall asleep.

When I wake up, the flat is dark. A quick peek at the clock tells me it's two in the morning. Naboo and Bollo must be home...

So why is Howard still here?

Cos Howard is still here.

I know cos my head is resting on his lap. I can feel the warmth of his legs, feel how well my head fits there. I know it does because the first night after I left 'ome and went to the zoo, I lay my head in his lap and cried about my parents, and he said it didn't matter and promised he'd take care of me and everything would be okay now, okay forever.

Now my head is in his lap. It's dark. And I feel his hand stroke over my hair.

His hand is shaking.

In the quiet, I listen.

Is he crying?

He goes on stroking my hair.

I want to sit up, put my arms round him, tell him it'll be okay now, okay forever, like he told me.

But I don't want him to know I've heard. And I don't want him to stop stroking my hair. So I lie there, and he stays sitting, stroking my hair and probably crying, with the darkness all around us, so we are the only two points of life in the entire dark, dark world.

* * *

**Okay!**

**As I said, more will happen in the next chapter.**

**Also, just thought I'd let you all know here... I'm actually going away for a while. Tomorrow I'm going to stay with my grandmother until Thursday - but like I said, there _might_ be another update before that... might. I'm taking my laptop so there'll definitely be another one on Friday, and probably "Meet The Moons" Chapter 3 as well. Then, on Saturday I'm going to New York. I won't be taking my laptop to NYC. I'll be back on the following Wednesday. So after the Friday update(s?), no updates until at least Thursday. Sorry.**

**I'll miss you guys.**

**Thanks for reading!**

**violence x**


	22. Chapter 22

**Wow, check this out! Two updates in one night!! I'm proud of myself.**

**I promised Lucie I'd try, and, well... I managed it. Yay me!**

**This update is all thanks to the song "Bloodsport" by the Sneaker Pimps. When I heard it (accidentally) I was hit by amazing inspiration for this chapter, and just had to write it. So thank you, Sneaker Pimps. I must listen to you more often.**

**Disclaimers:  
Mighty Boosh belongs to Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding.  
The two girls are based on Sue Denim and Dee Plume. I don't own them. If I ever do start owning them, you'll all know because I'll be too busy to ever come on here.  
The song (in case you couldn't guess) is "Bloodsport" - Sneaker Pimps. (You should all listen to them. Especially those of you that like IAMX... hehe.)**

* * *

**Chapter 22**

The psychiatrist is a skinny man with thinning hair. He talks to me for about an hour and then lets me go. Bollo is waitin' for me and we walk home together. The weather is gettin' warmer. Bollo's coat shines in the sunlight.

As we pass the supermarket, Bollo says he needs more food. He tells me I can go on home but I decide to help him shop. We walk round together companionably, 'im pushing the trolley and me gettin' the stuff he needs off the shelves for him.

"Bollo?" I say, once we're back outside, both carryin' bags.

"What Vince want?"

"Nothin', it's just..."

"What?" Bollo asks, lookin' at me.

"Well, you've been great, Bollo."

He just looks at me.

"I just wanted to say thanks. I guess."

Bollo goes on looking at me.

"Bollo?"

Then Bollo's gorilla eyes suddenly get all watery.

"Bollo?"

"Bollo got somethin' in eye... hold on..." He dumps the bags on the pavement and turns away, wiping his face with a paw.

"Bollo, are you 'kay?" I ask, dropping my own bags and putting my hand on his shoulder.

"Bollo not want Vince to think he needs thanking," says Bollo rather thickly, still with paws over his face. "Bollo happy to do it, do it for Vince..."

"But I still wanna say thanks," I say.

"Vince not need to say thanks!" says Bollo. He turns round to face me. The fur on his face is a bit damp. "Vince very important to Bollo. Vince Bollo best friend at zoo. Vince get Bollo away when zoo close down and other animals sold, introduce Bollo to Naboo and shamen... Vince..." He suddenly lets out a very loud sniff.

"Bollo!" I grab him and hug him. He hugs me back, and we stand there, bags round our feet, a man and a gorilla embracing each other. A car goes by and I see our reflection in the window, my head nuzzling into his soft fur.

"Bollo sorry," says Bollo gruffly, after a few moments, "But Bollo been so worried about Vince."

"I'm sorry, Bollo," I say. "I really am. I don't want... all this." I gesture to myself, not entirely sure what I mean. Do I mean I don't want my problems – or I don't want any part of me?

"Vince not need to be sorry. Vince only need to get better, be sunshine kid again."

"I'm tryin', Bollo. Really I am."

"Bollo know." He pats my arm. "Bollo very proud of Vince for trying."

I get a bit tearful then and he pats my arm again. "We all wait and see what doctor say. Then get proper help for Vince. Then four of us all be normal again. Bollo, Vince, Naboo and Howard, like it should be."

I get even more teary at that.

"Sorry... s'just... Howard..."

"Bollo know, Bollo know," the gorilla mumbles. He puts a paw on my shoulder. "Vince –"

"Mm?"

"Last night, when Bollo and Naboo come home from disco, Howard sitting on sofa. Holding Vince."

"He was?" Of course, I know 'e was later. But... "What time d'you get 'ome?"

"Midnight? Half past? Bollo not sure."

'E was like that _two hours?_

"Howard and Vince be okay. We all be okay. Always are. All four of us." He pats my shoulder and then says, "Better get home. Vince been out too long. Get too tired."

"Yeah. Cheers, Bollo."

"Vince not mention it." Bollo picks up his bags and I do too.

"Vince?" he says, as we start walkin' again.

"Yeah?"

"Not mention this to Naboo."

"Why?"

"Naboo laugh at Bollo. Say Bollo soft."

I suddenly find I'm laughin' at that moment. Laughin' like I 'aven't laughed in ages, and Bollo starts laughin' too. We walk all the way 'ome laughin', because some things never really change, and Naboo and Bollo's silly relationship is one of those things.

"What's so funny?" asks Naboo suspiciously, when we get back to the flat – and I laugh again, because he's another thing that'll never change. And all of that makes me feel better.

That evening, Howard and I watch television again.

"How did the psychiatrist go?" he asks.

"Good."

"Good."

I smile at 'im, and he smiles back, almost like he thinks he shouldn't. But he still smiles, and that's more than enough for me.

--

I don't feel as great in a few days time.

The 'ospital calls to discuss my psychiatrist's report. Howard answers and goes rather pale. He calls Naboo.

"What the matter?" asks Bollo, as Naboo takes the phone.

Howard glances at me.

"Is it the psychiatrist?" I ask.

Howard hesitates, and then nods. "It'll be fine," he says, not lookin' like he really thinks it.

Naboo is on the phone a long time.

Me, Howard and Bollo all kinda hang about. Well, I'm on the sofa so I'm hangin' about anyway, but they hang about as well.

When Naboo comes off the phone, he comes and sits down next to me. It's the closest he's been to me since he brought me home.

"What is it?" Howard asks.

Naboo looks right at me. "Vince... the doctor says it's depression."

I hesitate, not knowin' what to do.

"It's what we expected," says Naboo.

"Yeah," I say.

"What they do now?" Bollo asks.

"Well... they want to give 'im treatment," says Naboo. "Vince, you'll be goin' back into the hospital every week, for therapy sessions. You'll..." I zone his voice out, not really hearin' anymore.

Sometimes, I don't believe this is my life. It's like I'm watchin' a movie, and I'll turn it off at the end and things'll go back to normal. I don't really believe this kinda thing happens to me. But then again, no-one ever thinks that stuff will happen to them, do they?

--

The next afternoon, Leroy turns up.

"Hi, Vince!" he bellows when he sees me. He's wearin' an enormous gold chain round his neck. I think it's new. I've never seen it before.

Howard, who brought him up, edges away, lookin' deafened.

Leroy shouts a lot.

"Hi, Leroy," I say.

Leroy comes and crashes on the sofa next to me. "How are ya, mate? Did I tell you, I met this really fit girl a couple of weeks ago... I got 'er number..."

"Is this the one you told me about in the 'ospital?"

"I dunno; is it?" Leroy grins. Still, I suppose I should be glad someone's 'appy.

"I think it is."

"Oh. Well. Cool!"

"'Ave you seen 'er again then?" I ask, tryin' to make conversation and thinkin' I should be grateful he still cares enough to come visit when all my other 'friends' 'ave dropped me like last season's designs.

"No," says Leroy, still grinnin'.

I'm not really sure what to say to that.

"Look, Vince, man, I came by cos, there's this really awesome club openin' tonight – you'll probably 'ave 'eard of it, your Bollo's DJ-ing – and I wondered if you wanted to come!"

Ah. Yes. I knew Bollo was DJ-ing at a club opening tonight.

"It'll be immense," beams Leroy. "Drink, music, girls."

"Vince is ill," says Howard from the corner, soundin' extremely annoyed.

"C'mon, Vince!" Leroy says, totally ignorin' him. "You 'aven't been out for ages! People are missin' you!"

I think this is unlikely, but I don't say so.

"What's goin' on?" asks Naboo, coming out of his room.

"Hi, Naboo!" Leroy flaps a hand at him. "I was just askin' Vince to come to that new club with me tonight!"

"And I was just saying that Vince is ill," says Howard stiffly.

Leroy ignores this, again. He bounces up and down on the sofa like a puppy. I think that perhaps he should grow up.

Then I wonder if this is what Howard thinks about me sometimes. Or thought about me. Before all this started.

Naboo hesitates. "Is it that club Bollo's DJ-ing at?" he asks.

"Yeah!" says Leroy. "We're all psyched to see Bollo; he's buildin' up quite a reputation! I checked out some clips on YouTube and he look _awesome!_"

Naboo is looking at me. "Do you want to go out, Vince?" he asks.

"I –" I have no idea what to say. "I thought I wasn't allowed..."

"Actually," says Naboo, "The hospital said it might be good for you to get out of the house – flat – sometimes, as long as you don't overdo it. And Bollo will be there to keep an eye on you. So, if you wanted to go..."

"_Yeah!_" Leroy roars, now bouncing up and down so hard that the legs of the sofa are practically comin' off the floor. "Naboo, you legend! C'mon, Vince! It'll be _so immense!_"

"But –" says Howard.

Leroy suddenly falls silent. We all turn to look at him.

And for a moment, I hope Howard will come up with some argument for why I can't go.

But then Bollo comes in. "What's this? Vince comin' out to see Bollo DJ?"

--

Well, after that, I can't really not go, can I?

Bollo and Leroy are both expectin' me.

They both want me there.

As I'm gettin' ready – not sure what to wear, because suddenly all my clothes are too bright, too tight, too full of my old sick ways – I give myself a sharp mental slap. Several sharp mental slaps. I should be grateful that there are people who want me around. It doesn't matter if those people aren't...

Aren't Howard.

I meet Leroy outside the club. He's grinnin' his head off, clearly extremely proud that he's got me to come out – and probably already a little bit drunk. He's clutchin' a can of beer.

I've promised Naboo I won't drink. I don't want to, so it doesn't matter. But seein' Leroy swayin' about like that makes me realise how far gone I used to be.

Oh, God.

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

"Vince, man!" Leroy yells. He always yells. It's startin' to hurt my head. How did I put up with this before? Then I slap myself again, because Leroy is still stickin' around, even if he is a bit thick and a bit drunken. None of the rest of the old crowd have.

"Vince, man!" he goes. "There are these two _seriously_ hot girls here tonight!"

Oh no.

"I told them you were comin'!"

Oh great. They'll be all excited to meet Vince Noir.

Leroy guides me into the club, swigging from his can as he does. I glance at the DJ stand but Bollo isn't on yet; it's some other guy.

I find myself in a corner with Leroy and these two undeniably hot girls – but I don't care. In fact, I hardly even notice. Yeah, they're hot. Good for them.

I don't want anything from it. Why should I?

I'm in love with Howard.

"So," says one, a very cute short brunette, smiling at me. "You're Vince Noir."

"Yeah," I say.

"Yeah!" screams Leroy, flinging an arm round my neck. "This – this is _Vince fuckin' Noir!_"

The girls laugh, slightly nervously by the sound of things, although it's so loud in here that my head is already throbbin' so I can't totally tell. I'm becomin' more and more convinced I shouldn't have come.

"You know Bollo, don't you?" says the other one, a tall, striking blonde with cheek-bones higher than mine.

"Yeah..."

"Are you kiddin'?" Leroy yells. "He and Bollo are flatmates!"

"Cool," says the blonde.

"Awesome," says the brunette.

Then they look at us, runnin' their tongues over their teeth.

Leroy is lookin' at them both like they're ice lollies and it's the hottest day of the year.

"You were s'posed to be at that gig at the Velvet Onion the other week, weren't you?" says the brunette to me.

"What gig?" I ask.

"It was on the posters," she says. "Vince Noir will be here."

Oh, God. I remember agreein' to that, ages ago. I'd forgotten all about it.

Bands get people to come to their shows by sayin' I'm gonna be there?

What sort of person am I?

"Yeah... loads of people were really disappointed you weren't there," says the blonde. "Most of 'em, like, only came to see you."

"I was there!" Leroy yells, flapping his can around.

The girls raise their eyebrows at him and don't look impressed.

Still, later, when they want to dance and I won't come, they seem perfectly happy to go off with him.

Bollo's on now, DJ-ing his monkey heart away. He's good. He goes down well. There's a little gang of people near the front in Bollo t-shirts. I didn't know he'd 'ad those made. I'll 'ave to see about gettin' one. It'd be a nice gesture, I think. If I wore one.

I stay sittin' by the bar. I order a non-alcoholic cocktail. The barman raises his eyebrows at me. Maybe even he knows who I am, I dunno. People I've never seen before keep wavin' to me. I keep worryin' I might have just forgotten them while I was in 'ospital – maybe I lost some memories when I fell off the roof – so I just wave back. They always look thrilled, so I guess I'm improvin' someone's night.

Bollo finishes his set, and some regular electro stuff comes on.

I have another non-alcoholic cocktail.

I look at all the people under the lights. I spot Leroy, the two girls wrapped round him. All those bodies, all movin' to the beats. The song thumps, so loud it's almost blindin': _I want to be a kid again, combed down hair and Sunday best. See me staying out, bunking school, knowing wrong from right just rules.._

I recognise the song. I must've heard it before in clubs. I look at the clubbers, their arms in the air, in their short skirts and their leggings and tight tops, swaying to the beats, dyed red, green and blue, and kinda hazy from the dry ice. They don't look real. I don't feel like any of this is real.

I think about Howard. At home. With a cup of tea. Starin' at the television.

_I wish I'd never seen your face... "Better door than window" phase..._

I wonder if that's how he always used to be, when I went out.

Another girl waves to me, lookin' excited. I flap a hand back.

_I need an echo, not your praise, straying from the point you nailed..._

I wonder why I never thought about it before. Why did it take all this to make me see how – how empty – all of this is? These people, they almost look see-through. Although that might just be the lights.

_My mother... my mother... my mother never told..._

Is he worryin' about me?

He sat on that sofa (accordin' to what Bollo said) for over two hours holdin' me.

I remember how he stroked my hair.

_My mother... my mother... my mother never told me... love is just a bloodsport..._

_Love is just a bloodsport..._

I think about Howard. Howard in the shop. Howard with stationary village. Howard playing jazz on his old trumpet. Howard yelling at me for something. Howard in the middle of a crimp. Howard smiling. Howard laughing. Howard looking at me. Howard looking at me.

_Sex and love is not a game... a game is something you can win... And maybe something kind of fun... cos love is just a bloodsport..._

I look at all the arms in the air.

I look down at my legs in their skinny trousers.

I can feel the beats in my legs.

I listen to the voice of the singer.

_Love is just a bloodsport..._

It sounds a bit like the voice of the man in my dream. High. Pained. Begging.

_Love is just a bloodsport..._

Love.

What the hell am I doing?

Why am I here? I should be with Howard.

I leap up. I don't stop to wait for Leroy. I don't stop to wait for Bollo. I run. The lyrics urge me on as I flee out of the club, the cold air smacking me in the face and chest... _Love is just a bloodsport..._

--

I sprint all the way home. I never knew I could run this fast. But everything in me is just beating Howard, Howard, Howard. I have to get to him. I have to. My legs pound the pavement. My breath comes in rasps, hurtin' my throat, but this is the most alive I've felt in a long time. Howard. Howard. Get to Howard. Have to tell 'im I'm sorry for goin' out... and I 'ave to tell 'im I love him. I have to make him understand, this isn't a game for me. I'm not the shallow bitch who goes out to clubs and entices people to shows anymore, I'm not. Strip away the make-up and I'm not. I'm not any of that. I'm just Vince, and I'm in love with 'im, and that's all I've got really...

Get to Howard.

Get to Howard.

Get to Howard.

I almost fly round the corner, struggle to stick my key in the lock, and come chargin' up the stairs, hair swinging in my face, expectin' to see Howard sittin' on the sofa...

Howard isn't there.

I'm boilin', sweating from running, so I throw my coat on the sofa, where Howard should be. I go to call for him, but then I hear a voice...

"Howard... it's not your fault."

Naboo?

It's comin' from Naboo's bedroom.

"It is!"

Howard!

Oh God, he sounds... he sounds...

"It is my fault, Naboo! You don't know what happened when you and Bollo were away!"

"Well, I would, if you'd tell me!"

There's a short pause. I can hear footsteps. Howard pacing.

"Howard..."

"We slept together!" Howard shouts.

There's a little silence.

"We slept together!" Howard fills it again with his choked shouting. "We slept together and I knew what I was doing the whole time, and I could tell he was going to want more and I didn't stop it!"

"But I thought you said you..."

"I do want more, Naboo! But what do I do? It's Vince! He's never seemed interested in me before, then he suddenly kisses me, everything just came out and I couldn't – and then – then it kept happenin' – and I had to admit to myself I was in love with him, but I didn't – and then he said he loved me – and I just freaked out – oh God, why did I freak out?"

"Howard, it's okay."

"I just didn't know what to do. I mean, Vince? With me? And we've been getting on so badly lately, it was all so sudden... I ran out and then I didn't go back and... then I couldn't go back... and all those women, so many women... how could I explain that to him? And then I saw him in that club..."

"I understand," says Naboo. "You weren't expectin' what 'appened, you've never been with a guy before..."

"I didn't have to run away like that! Oh God, Naboo, he – he tried to kill himself! That shouldn't happen. Not Vince, not my Vince. And it's... it's because of me, Naboo!" A sudden crash, as though Howard as suddenly dropped down onto the floor. "It's because of me!"

"Howard." I hear Naboo go over to him. "Howard, it's not because of you. The doctor said. He said episodes of depression aren't just triggered by one relationship problem. It'll 'ave been there all the time; this might have got it goin', but it could've been anything. It's _not your fault_."

"I just – I just can't bear what I did to him – I love him, Naboo, and I know you think I'm a freak but –"

"I don't think you're a freak, Howard. Well. Not too much of a freak, anyway."

There's a pause.

"If..." Naboo breaks off, and then starts again. "If you love him, why don't you help him now? I think... I think he's more confused by what you're doin' now than he is by what you did before."

Howard whimpers slightly. "I feel... I feel so wrong... he's ill, I feel like I'm taking advantage..."

"You're not takin' advantage. He loved you before he was ill."

"... and after what I did..."

"I thought you said you told him you loved him?"

"I did, but now... I don't feel... I just feel so... if I ever hurt him again, I..."

"It's okay," Naboo says. "It's okay, it's all gonna be okay."

Okay.

Okay forever.

I can't move. I can't let them know I heard.

But my heart is racin' in my chest, because now I know. I know what's been up with him. And I know that he loves me. And as all I've got, really, is loving him, him loving me is all I care about. At the end of everything, that's all I care about.

* * *

**Hooray! And "Bliss" is now officially my longest ever fic! (TJMTM&TW only got to 21 chapters.)**

**Thanks so much for all your support, and I'll see you for another update on Friday when I'm back from my grandmother's!**

**violence x**


	23. Chapter 23

**Sorry this took a while. But it's a longer chapter, so maybe that'll make up for it. (That being said, I think this chapter is a little boring. I will make up for it in Chapter 24, I promise!!)**

**There will be only two more chapters after this. It's so weird that this story is finally finishing. It's been going for more than half a year. I'm hoping to get it finished by the end of this week!! That's not a promise, but... I'm hoping.**

**Disclaimers:  
The Mighty Boosh and all characters belong to Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding.  
None of the brand names, such as Starbucks, belong to me.  
****The song in Starbucks in "Fistful Of Love" by Antony & The Johnsons. I put that song in cos Julia (northernbullet) said it reminded her of this story. Thank you, Julia, dear.**

**Also, I'm not sure how accurate the bit with the psychatrist is, but I could only base it on what I know, and that's what my psychologist does with me. That being said, she's not a psychatrist, so I don't know if psychatrists do it... but anyway.  
****And I'm sorry for the rather depressing couple in Starbucks!!**

* * *

**Chapter 23**

I wake up next mornin' and it really is like a story – I remember in a flash, like people do in the movies, and I sit up with a little gasp.

I remember what Howard said last night.

I leap straight up, out of bed. I didn't speak to 'im last night. Couldn't move. Needed to let him be alone. But now, all I want is to see 'im...

I rush out of my room.

But Howard isn't there. Just Bollo, hummin' over a waffle iron that I didn't even know we owned. "Morning, Vince," he greets me.

"Mornin'... is...?"

"Howard still sleeping," says Bollo, guessing. "Bollo making breakfast. What Vince like with waffles?"

I suddenly wonder if this is part of the campaign Naboo's been runnin' for the past week, to get me fattened up a bit. Maybe the waffle iron is even new. Maybe it's special Put Weight On Vince equipment. Bollo also, I realise, 'asn't mentioned me leavin' the club without him last night. Naboo must have briefed him.

I 'ad been tryin' to avoid the eating sessions, but today I'm not in the mood to argue. Hell, I actually feel like eatin' somethin'. So I sit down at the table and let Bollo bring me syrup, chocolate sauce, cream, various fruits (since when do any of us eat fruit? Even Bollo doesn't much and 'e's a monkey. This must be Naboo tryin' to get me to eat) and some of that rainbow-coloured sugar. I choose that one cos it's colourful and sparkly. I say as much to Bollo and he smiles and says, "Colourful and sparkly like Vince ought to be."

That makes me feel a bit weepy, but I ignore it and get on with eatin'. Bollo eats with me. He still 'asn't mentioned last night. I'm grateful, partly cos I've realised I'm gonna 'ave a lot of explainin' to do to Leroy at some point, about why I just sprinted out and left him. Although actually, he might be pleased. It would've meant he 'ad no competition for those two girls. This will mean I'll spend the next two weeks 'earin' stories of how they had a threesome, but that's better than tryin' to think of a reason for leavin' so suddenly.

But in spite of all this, I can't really bring meself to care all that much. As I eat, there's only one thing on my mind, and I'm sure you can guess what – who – it is.

And then suddenly I 'ear a door openin', and my 'and slips and I drop me fork and splatter cream over the table.

Bollo looks up sharply too – but he doesn't groan. Instead, his eyes are knowing.

Howard comes into the room.

He looks the way he always does at the moment, lookin' around, as though 'e's searchin' me out, reelin' 'imself in like a fish – but this morning, I don't care.

He does see me, though – and his tongue flicks nervously over 'is mouth.

I suddenly realise I ran out me room without even lookin' in the mirror once. And what's even funnier is, I didn't even notice I 'adn't looked until now.

But I don't care. I smile at him. Just cos it's all I can think of to do.

He hesitates, and then gives me a rather nervous smile back.

Bollo gets up to get more waffles. He doesn't roll his eyes about Howard the way he used to. 'E's stopped doin' that recently.

Howard sits down, still lookin' nervous. He's glancin' about like 'e's lookin' for an escape route.

"Mornin'," I try.

He looks at me – and then seems to allow 'imself to relax a bit and said, "Morning."

There's this little pause. Bollo clinks a plate in the kitchen.

"... sleep well?" Howard asks eventually, in a rather pathetic voice as though 'e thinks this is a stupid thing to ask.

"Yeah. You?"

"Oh. Okay," he says, in a voice that seems to imply no – but somehow, he doesn't seem to mind as much about it as he might do.

Bollo reappears.

But even when 'e's back, and Howard starts eatin', and we don't talk anymore, things seem ever so slightly better.

And that makes my whole chest seem to sing.

--

I get the call I've been expectin' at five that evenin'.

"Leroy," says Naboo, passin' me the phone.

"'Ello?" I say, takin' the phone.

"Vince!" bellows Leroy, almost deafening me and probably everyone in his block of flats too, "Why aren't you pickin' up your mobile?" I can 'ear him playin' thunderous music in the background.

I'm not actually sure where my mobile phone is. It's not exactly my top priority at the moment. I make a faint, unsure noise.

"Oh, well – where'd you go last night?"

"I –"

"I'm dead! I 'ad _both _those girls back 'ere last night; damn, Vince, man, I'm wiped out; I only just woke up; I –"

I sigh slightly with relief.

"What did he want?" asks Howard, when I finally manage to get a word in edgeways, tell Leroy I need to go and hang up.

I think quickly. Howard doesn't know I left early. If he realises, he might guess I was in the flat while 'e was talkin' to Naboo, and – well, I don't want him to know that. Not yet.

"He was... he was just talkin' about these two girls we met at the club last night."

Somethin' in Howard's face.

A faint flicker.

A tremble.

Like a gasp across his features.

Then he nods and looks back at the paper 'e's been readin'.

Oh, shit.

"Yeah, and 'ow he got with both of 'em," I add quickly.

Howard tries not to glance back at me.

He really, really tries.

I can tell.

I can almost see 'is neck strainin' to keep 'is 'ead still. But his eyes move towards me.

I go and sit on the sofa next to him, not too close. But I can feel the heat from his body all the rest of that evenin' – and I imagine that he can feel the heat from the mine.

--

Love.

Every time I think about Howard, it's as though a kind of mantra comes to me mind: _I love him._

Love's a kinda weird thing. Howard said he loves me – 'e said it to me, 'e said it to Naboo – but I want to be close to 'im, and 'e doesn't seem to want to be close to me.

The evening after I we sit on the sofa, when Bollo orders me into bed early like a fussy mother, I slip my arms round Howard's shoulders and give 'im a quick squeeze.

'E seems to turn to marble. 'E doesn't react. But 'e trembles slightly.

I'm meant to get 'elp from my psychatrist, but although I do go on seein' 'im, I can't really ask 'im about this, can I?

At the weekend the weather gets very warm, and me and Bollo go for a walk. This is to get me fresh air – and to be honest, I'm glad to get away from Howard so I can just breathe, without burnin' up whenever I see 'im.

He says goodbye to me before we go, though. Well, I say it first – but he looks up at me and says, "Goodbye, Vince." And his eyes look right into mine.

His eyes are beautiful.

I don't really wanna ask Bollo about it. Why is Howard doin' this? We both seem to be feelin' such different things. Is 'e even in love with me? Or maybe 'e is the one in love, and I'm not, I just don't know it. My 'ead aches thinkin' about it all. Maybe I just don't know what love is. Cos I think love is the mantra I always think, and the burnin' up, and the _I only have eyes for you _song.

I don't ask Bollo. I don't think Bollo's ever been in love.

He buys me an ice-cream, like I'm three years old. But I don't mind. I don't mind him mothering me. My own mother hasn't had much contact since I got discharged the second time from 'ospital. I suspect my dad 'ad somethin' to do with that – maybe the doctors mentioned that my behaviour was something to do with another man – but I don't really mind that they're not around. I care about Howard, Naboo and Bollo a lot more.

On our walk, we see a couple of girls, holdin' hands and smilin' at each other, their hair bouncin' off their shoulders like they're in a movie, smilin' at each other as they walk. They've only got eyes for each other. Is love supposed to be like that? I just don't know.

When we get home, Howard makes dinner. Naboo nods to him. Naboo's bein' a bit more relaxed around me, perhaps cos a couple of weeks 'ave passed and I haven't made any further attempts to throw myself off the roof. We all eat together, sittin' on the sofas, without the TV on. Howard and I sit next to each other. His elbow bumps mine and we catch each other's eye. I smile at him and he does smile back, faintly.

--

"I think," says my psychatrist, "From what you've told me, that the extreme reaction to rejection may have been caused by a feeling of social isolation from early in life."

Yeah – half a year ago I'd have laughed at the idea of me bein' socially isolated, too. But I don't now. Perhaps cos I'm a bit scared of this psychatrist. He tells me things about myself like 'e knows everythin'. I'm not sure if he does or not.

"It appears that your parents – in particular your father – consistently failed to meet your emotional needs and validate your feelings, which, understandably, has led to a feeling of being different and outcast, as well as an increased desire for acceptance. I believe your social behaviour in general may also have been caused by this."

I just sit there. It sounds right – but it doesn't feel like me. I seem to be floatin' above all this. It's like 'e's talkin' to someone else.

"Vince," he says gently, "I'd like to try something."

"What?" I ask, more than a little nervously.

"It's called visualisation."

"Are you gonna hypnotise me?"

"No, it's not that. I'd just like you to close your eyes –"

"Now?"

"Yes, if you don't mind."

"Okay..." I close them. I can always open them again, I suppose. Instantly I see black with purple studs.

"Now," he says, "I want you to think back to a time early in your life when your parents made you feel that something you did or felt was wrong, or bad, or pushed you away when you asked for their help..."

"Any time at all?"

"Yes... just think about what I've said and allow an image to float to the surface... take as long as you like... tell me when you're ready..."

--

"I'm ready."

"Okay, Vince. Now, tell me – how old are you, in the image you see?"

"I'm about six."

"Okay. Where are you, Vince?"

"I'm here –"

"No... in your image. Where are you?"

"Oh. I'm in me parents' bedroom."

"What's happening?"

"Well... I... I 'ad a bad dream... and I've gone in for help..."

"And what do your parents say to you?"

"Well, me mum leans over the side of the bed and asks what the dream was about, and I tell her, and then she says – she says, you're not fallin', Vincent, you're not going to drown; don't be silly, it was only a dream – and then –"

"It's okay. I understand. Does your father say anything?"

"He wakes up. He starts yellin' at me, askin' me why I woke them up when I know 'e has to be up early for a meeting at work – he says he provides for us and I'm ungrateful –"

"Okay, Vince, it's okay. I can see, the way they reacted made you feel that it was wrong to be afraid..."

"There's somethin' else..."

"Yes?"

"Earlier the same day I got chased by some older guys from me school – when I got 'ome I told me parents about it and my dad said I must've asked for it and my mum agreed – and now –"

"It's okay, Vince. We can stop if you want."

"No... it's just, me dad said, when I woke 'im up, that if I was like that around other people it was no wonder those guys chased me... 'e said I just wind everyone up..."

"All right, it's all right. Take a deep breath."

"..."

"Yes, I can see, by saying this to a young child, your father was effectively telling you that the way you were was unacceptable to people..."

--

I always 'ave a lot to think about at the end of these sessions.

My psychatrist thinks that my parents, in particular me dad, made me think that me bein' myself was something to be ashamed of. He says that this made me both obsessed with popularity and hyper-sensitive to any sort of rejection.

I leave the hospital quietly, the way I always do, head spinnin' – but today it's whirling even more than usual. I keep thinkin' about my father and rememberin' more and more things he did. My father yellin' at me about my school work, my friends, my grades, my clothes. My father shakin' his head at me. My father sayin', "No son of mine's going out dressed like that!" when I appeared in a pink t-shirt.

It was new, that shirt. It cost me fifty quid. I was gonna show it off for the first time that night. He made me change.

And my mother. My mother, always just standin' there, not quite noddin'. Almost noddin'. Almost agreein', with her eyes. Enough to let me know she didn't disagree.

I think about Howard. I think about how he shows he cares about me the way I am, not the way he imagined I should be.

Or at least, he used to show it.

Suddenly I can't face goin' home, so I go into Starbucks. It's reasonably empty – a couple of teenage girls, and a man and a woman sittin' huddled at a table. I get a frappucino, one of the chocolate ones. I used to drink those things the whole time, but recently they've seemed too sweet for my sourness. But today, I get a table by the window and slurp the stuff like it could wash everythin' away.

The girls are gigglin' together – perhaps about me, although they seem to be lookin' out the window. In the past I would have gone struttin' over for a napkin to get their attention, but not now. The man and the woman on the table near me are engaged in some sort of deep discussion. They both look pretty down. "Nothing's going to change, is it?" says the man. "You said we'd try, but we won't."

"We could," says the woman, "If we both wanted to."

"But you don't want to," he says, accusingly.

"Neither do you," she says.

They pause – then 'e reaches out and puts 'is 'and over hers.

"I still love you," he says.

She looks up at him, her blonde hair fallin' all over her eyes. She puts 'er 'and over his. "I love you too," she says. "Of course I love you. You're the love of my life. But this isn't going to work anymore."

He grips her hand. But he says, "I know."

"I have to go." She moves to get up."

He releases her hand straight away, although she looks as though she was hopin' he wouldn't. "You have to go."

"Please," she says, "Please think badly of me."

He looks up at 'er. "I could never, ever think badly of you."

"Good – cos I won't ever think badly of you, and I don't want you to –"

"I said I won't."

They look at each other.

"Bye, then," she says.

"Yeah. Bye. Take care."

"You too." She drops some coins. "For my drink. Bye." And she walks out.

Walks straight out like this was a perfectly ordinary coffee.

Walks out in 'er spotty tights, 'er blonde hair bouncin' on her shoulders, walkin' half as though she just lost a lead weight, and half as though she just gained one.

And the man doesn't even watch 'er go. He just pushes back his fringe, lets out 'is breath, and then leans his chin on his hands.

_And I feel your burning eyes burning holes, straight through my heart, it's out of love_ goes the music in the Starbucks.

Suddenly I don't wanna stay 'ere anymore. I leave before the man does. He's sittin' still, but thoughtful, as I go, with the music behind me sayin' _Fists, fists, fists full of love..._

So is that what love is?

What even were they?

Were they lovin' someone so much you let them go? Were they recognisin' when love won't work and stoppin'? Where they showin' that love isn't perfect? What?

When I get home, I hear a strange, high sound playing.

It's a haunting melody that sends shivers down me spine. It's comin' from Howard's room.

I creep up and look round the door. Howard is sittin' on the bed – playin' his trumpet.

I thought he'd got rid of that thing ages ago. I 'aven't seen it for years.

But he's playin' a beautiful, eerie tune that suddenly makes tears come into my eyes – because it seems to be a song about love. Some kind of love. I'm not sure what kind, but some kind. It isn't the two girls holdin' hands. It might be the man and woman in the cafe – but it might also be somethin' else. Some other kind.

--

That night, we all watch television.

We seem to be fallin' into a little routine at the moment, but I don't mind. In fact, if Howard wasn't still bein' distant, I think I'd really love it, all this time spent together.

Tonight, though, I can't concentrate on the programme. My mind keeps replaying the high, calling notes of Howard's tune. I look at him, next to me on the sofa, and imagine 'is hands strokin' the shiny surface of the instruments, his lips against it. Makin' it make those sounds.

Naboo can't concentrate either. At about ten thirty, he falls asleep.

"Bollo take him to bed," says Bollo. We nod. We all know Naboo's very tired. 'E's been runnin' the shop on 'is own while Bollo and Howard have been with me. Naboo isn't used to actually workin'.

Bollo carries him off. And me and Howard are left alone.

It's only once he's gone that I think to wonder if Bollo did this on purpose.

I look at Howard.

He's sittin' exactly the same as he was before, lookin' at the TV. Like he's watchin' it. But he's forgotten it's me. I know 'im too well. He's not really watchin' it. He's too tense. He's waitin' for somethin'. Like I am. I'm not sure what for, but I am waitin'.

"Howard?"

It's out me mouth before I even realise I'm going to say anything.

He doesn't react for a few moments. He doesn't even jump the way he sometimes does when I speak to him now.

Then, just when I think he's gonna ignore me completely, he says, "Yes, Vince?"

I get a little shudder cos I've always loved the way he says my name.

"Howard... earlier, you were playin' your trumpet..."

I had no idea I was gonna talk about this. Maybe I shouldn't. Howard does turn to look at me though, so maybe it's a good thing. But he is frownin'.

"You – you heard that?"

"Yeah... when I got 'ome from 'ospital."

"Oh." Howard seems embarrassed. He turns away again.

"It sounded really good," I say.

He looks back at me. "You're just saying that," he says. "You hate that sort of music."

"I'm not! It did sound really good. Can't you even take a compliment?"

"Yes, but it was jazz – you hate jazz."

"I know, but that –" And then I realise. We sound almost normal.

Howard seems to realise it at the same second I do.

After everything else, we still seem to think alike.

Our eyes meet as my voice breaks off.

"Vince..." he says.

"Don't," I say, cos I don't want 'im to spoil it. Spoil anything. Spoil him lookin' at me with his wonderful eyes, and his hair, which is still a bit longer than usual, hangin' down in his face. I look at the lines of his face and think I might be content to just sit and look at 'im.

After a few moments, he nods.

We both turn back to the television.

But after a few moments, I move my hand and, half accidentally, put it over his.

He doesn't pull away.

So we sit on the sofa, my hand over 'is, gazing ahead at the television, not moving – but where our skin meets, it feels like fire and neither of us want to move, and we sit there until about three in the mornin', when I fall asleep.

When I wake up next morning, Howard's gone – but I can still see the cushions pressed down where he was sittin'. He's pulled a blanket over me too, so I hide my face in it and wish I could stay wrapped up there forever, where nothing would hurt.

* * *

**Two more to go now...**

**Thanks for all your support.**

**violence x**


	24. Chapter 24

**The promised Chapter 24!!**

**Disclaimers:  
Mighty Boosh belongs to Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding.  
The song in the kebab shop is "What's Left Of Me" by Nick Lachey. What can I say? We all need some cheese once in a while.**

**This is dedicated to all of you, my wonderful wonderful readers.  
I hope it pleases you all and makes you happy.**

* * *

**Chapter 24**

Bollo gets another DJ gig. It's over on the other side of London, so Naboo says he'll take 'im on the carpet.

I suspect this is partly because Naboo wants to leave me and Howard on our own together. I'm not entirely sure if I'm 'appy about this or not. Of course I'm 'appy bein' around Howard – or I should be. But after that night when we sat almost hand-holding on the sofa, a couple of days ago, Howard's been ever quieter.

I catch 'im lookin' at me sometimes. Gazing. Almost longingly. But I can't tell. Howard has beautiful eyes but they're too small – unless you're right up close to 'im, you can't look into 'em to tell what he's thinkin'.

Last night, there were fireworks. I'm not sure why. I sat by the window watchin' 'em. Fireworks look like coloured stars. Howard once told me that stars are really big burnin' balls of gas, explodin' at huge temperatures out in space. Maybe they do look more like fireworks than little specks of glitter. I dunno.

But tonight there won't be any fireworks. It's been rainin' all day.

Naboo and Bollo 'ave to go quite early, about six, cos the one-way system means that Naboo'll have to take a longer route on 'is carpet.

Bollo fusses over me before we leave, makin' sure I've got everythin' I need. Naboo's gettin' fussed. They leave late.

"What's new?" I say, nervously, as they hurry off, arguin' as always.

Howard smiles faintly.

"Cup of tea?" I offer.

He looks at me properly then. For a few moments, neither of us speak.

Then: "That'd be nice."

I go through to the kitchen.

It's all so familiar: _"Cup of tea?" "That'd be nice."_ That old routine goes all the way back to the zoo, when I was really just a kid. Back when things were okay. When I knew how Howard felt.

I try to remind myself that I do know how Howard feels. He said so 'imself. He loves me.

But if 'e loves me, why is he being so... so... I don't even know what's 'e's bein'.

I finish makin' the tea, makin' it deliberately nice. I remember before, when I tried to make his tea specially nice to make 'im happy. I thought at the time that was pathetic. I think it again a bit now.

I take the mugs through to the sofa, careful not to spill any.

Howard's lookin' at the TV guide.

I could almost kid myself this is normal.

"Thanks," he says, as I pass 'im one of the mugs.

I sit down next to him.

"Anythin' good on?" I ask.

He shrugs. "There's a documentary about the origins of the trumpet..."

"What? TV isn't _that _crap! Lemme see." I grab the edge of the TV guide.

"I was looking at that!" he says.

"But I wanna see!"

"Well, I had it first!"

"But it's my turn now!"

"You sound like a three year old!" he says, but suddenly he's laughing.

"So do you!" I shoot back, gigglin' too.

"It's my TV guide! I work harder than you, therefore I contribute more towards the household income, therefore stuff here is more mine than yours –"

"Shut up! I wanna see! You don't work 'arder than me, anyway."

We're tuggin' the TV guide backwards and forwards between us.

"I do!"

"You don't!"

"I do!"

"You don't!"

The TV guide suddenly rips in half. We're both left holdin' a piece. We both stare at it rather stupidly.

"Well," I say eventually, "You 'ave that 'alf and I'll 'ave this 'alf."

Howard lets out a strange yelp of laughter. I laugh too. We sit on the sofa, holdin' ripped TV guide bits, laughing until we're out of breath. And I feel so good it's like my entire body is singin'. When we finally calm down, we both just flop on the sofa.

"You still don't get to watch the trumpets thing," I say eventually.

Howard swats at me with his half of the TV guide. Then he chuckles weakly. "God, you're still mental."

That's a tiny pause.

"Oh, God, Vince... I didn't... I didn't mean..."

"Don't worry," I say, turnin' to look at 'im properly. "I know."

Howard looks at me too.

For a few seconds, we sit lookin' at each other.

Then, I move, Howard moves, his hand touches my face, my fingers find his neck – and suddenly his mouth's on mine.

And I feel like all them fireworks have got in my head and my heart and stomach and are goin' off everywhere. And all there is in the world is Howard's mouth against mine...

But then, as suddenly as it started, he jerks away. "Oh God, Vince," he says.

"No..." He can't do this to me, not again. I clutch at his face and try to kiss him again, but he holds me off this time. "No, Vince," he says. "No, I can't... I can't..."

And something inside me bursts.

"Why can't you?" I shout. I didn't mean to shout; it all just comes out. "Why can't you, Howard?"

"Vince – I –"

"_You said you loved me!_" I scream.

"I – I do –"

"Well, why won't you let us be together? Howard, what is with you? Don't you know what you're doin' to me? Christ, Howard, I love you; do you just want to torture me –"

"You don't know what you're talking about –"

"I know that you say you love me but you won't –"

"I do!" He shouts too now. I jump. I didn't expect it. He leaps up off the sofa. "Jesus, Vince, I do love you but I just can't do this –"

"Why not?"

"You don't understand –"

"Well, I might if you'd just tell me!"

"_I can't hurt you again!_"

Silence.

The whole flat rings with our voices.

I can't get my voice goin'. Not loud enough to drown all the echoes out.

"W-what?" I whisper finally.

Howard is clutchin' his hair between his fingers. "I can't," he says. "What I did to you – I left you, I hurt you, you tried to kill yourself because of me – how can I be with you knowing that? Naboo said, before you came home, to let you recover – you're sick, Vince – and I'll only make it worse, because you're sick because of me –"

"No, Howard!" I leap up off the sofa and grab his wrists, tryin' to hold him to me. "Howard, listen. The psychatrist said, it's not you. It's all this stuff with me parents and everythin' – you just sparked it off –"

"Well, how do we know I won't spark it off again?" Howard cries.

I stagger, thrown.

"Vince," he says. His voice is trembling. "Vince, please. I've done so much wrong – I can't hurt you again – you have to forget about loving me and find someone who won't hurt you –"

"Forget? You think I can forget? Howard –" I throw my arms round his middle – but he pushes me off.

"Vince... Vince, I can't..." And he turns and flees out of the room, towards the stairs.

"No!" I shriek. "You're not runnin' away again!" And I tear after him, clattering down the stairs. I catch 'im halfway down. "Howard!" I throw my arms round him from behind. "Howard, you can't leave me! Please, listen –"

"No!" Howard spins round. "You listen! You think you're the only one with feelings, Vince? I've loved you for – so long – my whole life – and it's always been wrong. When we met you were too young, then you didn't want me – you never wanted me – you always wanted other people more –"

"That was cos it hurt too much bein' round you!"

" – you always only thought about yourself –"

"No, that's not true –!"

"But then it all just broke, when Naboo was away – it got worse and worse – God, Vince, I love you so much but I didn't know what was happenin' – and you were doing what I wanted for once – and then you said you loved me and – it was you, Vince, you'd never loved me before – and I didn't know what to do – and you're a guy, Vince –"

"Oh, so this is some masculine anti-gay thing, is it?"

"_No!_ But I've never been with a man before, you know that – and like I said it was you, you sayin' you loved me – I just panicked, I didn't know if you meant it –"

"Of course I meant it!"

"And then – then I left – and then when I saw you again at that bar – God, Vince, I could have killed myself seeing you look like that – and it was all my fault – Vince, I'm doing this so you won't get hurt – I can't bear it if you're hurt –"

"But you won't hurt me; Howard, please –!" I try to pull him towards me and he pushes me away, again. I stagger backwards, falling against the stairs, almost hitting my head on the banisters. I yelp.

Then I realise what I've done.

I look up at Howard.

He's shaking his head at me.

"I'm sorry, Vince. I'm sorry for everything." And he turns and runs down the stairs.

"Howard!" I leap up and dash after him, but he's already out the door. I throw myself after him. It's rainin'. The cold water strikes my head, my face, my clothes. I look around frantically. Howard's disappearin' round the corner.

"Howard!" I go tearin' after him, even though it hurts running into the rain like that. "Howard!" I run round the corner – but he's gone.

"Howard!"

Nothin'.

"Howard, please!"

Still nothin'.

I'm not lettin' him get away again. I lost 'im once, I'm not doin' it again.

"Howard!"

And I set off down the road.

"Howard!"

A car sweeps by, tyres screeching, headlights blazing through the rain.

"Howard!"

"Howard!"

"Howard!"

--

Nothin'.

Hours later and nothin'.

The rain's fallin' even harder, sheets of white through the air. White. There's always white now. And white means bad.

I went everywhere.

Everywhere.

I promise, I did.

I tried.

The jazz club.

Lester Corncrake's.

All the pubs.

The Velvet Onion.

Everywhere Howard used to go.

He's nowhere.

I didn't give up. I didn't.

I walked. I walked in the rain, callin' for 'im.

He didn't call back.

I hardly know where I am anymore.

I'm so wet it hardly matters about the rain, but it's hittin' me so hard it feels like me face is bleedin', so I stagger into the only shop open on this street – this disgustin' 24 kebab thing. There's a fat guy behind the counter who leers at me, and one other man, sittin' broodingly at a table, not eatin' anything.

I'm drippin' wet, literally; I'm leavin' a puddle on the floor. I put my hand to my face and panic a bit when I feel the water's warm – but my fingers aren't red. And I realise it's just tears. They somehow don't seem such a big thing anymore.

The fat guy's smirkin'. "Can I 'elp you, love?" he grunts, in a voice like a pig.

I shake my head nervously, wonderin' if I should go back out again. But I don't know where I am. I don't know whether to go on lookin' for Howard or go 'ome. And I don't know where either of the things I want are.

"You sure?" he goes.

"Yeah..."

"Cos, you know, if you're lost, I could give you a bed for the night..."

"Um..."

"Oh, there you are!" says a man's voice.

I spin round, hardly daring to hope...

It isn't Howard.

It's the other guy, the one just sittin' at the table. Except he's not sittin' now; he's stood up and he's comin' towards me.

"Huh?" I say.

"I got you a seat," he says – and then he winks at me.

And I realise. He's savin' me from the kebab man.

I hurry back over to his corner table with him.

"Thanks," I mutter.

"Don't mention it," he mutters back.

I snuffle a bit.

"Who is she then?" he asks.

I look at him, and then remember Howard sayin' how he'd never been with a man before. And I start cryin' properly.

"I'll get you some tea," says this kind stranger. He gets up.

I glance around as best I can with my misty eyes. It's one of the most disgustin' places I've ever been. It reeks of grease and the walls glisten. And they're playin' this horrible depressin' music.

I tremble violently and try to wipe my eyes. But there's so much water runnin' off me hair I don't even know how I'll know if I've managed it.

My new friend returns about five minutes later with two cups of orange liquid with separated milk on top.

"Okay," he says, as he sits back down, "You probably won't want to drink this, but it's the best I could do..."

"S'okay." I wipe my face and look up at him. He's thin with a droopy brown fringe. "Thank you," I mumble.

"It's okay," he says. "You look like you need a friendly face, and I need company." He takes a sip of the tea and grimaces. "No, you definitely don't want to drink this."

I attempt a smile.

"So...?" he prompts. "The girl?"

"Man, actually."

His expression doesn't change. "Who is he?"

"He's... he's me best friend."

"Ah."

"Howard... and... and he ran off and I can't – I can't –" My voice catches.

"You can't find him?"

I shake my head.

"Why did he run off?"

"We've 'ad... all these problems..." I say vaguely.

The man nods.

We sit in silence for a while. I can feel water runnin' down my cold skin under my clothes.

The song they're playing goes, _Watch my life pass me by in the rear view mirror... Pictures frozen in time are becoming clearer..._

The kebab man is starin' at me.

"We kind of got together," I say suddenly, "But he freaked out... and I've had depression... and he says he's worried 'bout hurtin' me but 'e's not, 'e's hurtin' me more by leavin'..."

My kind stranger nods along as this outburst continues – "I love 'im; I can't 'elp it – I dunno what else to do – I've tried to tell 'im – he says he's doing it for me but... but..."

_Cos I want you, and I feel you, crawling underneath my skin... Like a hunger, like a burning, to find a place I've never been..._

I feel more tears coming.

I look at my kind stranger. "What should I do?"

He shrugs. "Maybe... you know, sometimes... sometimes things just don't... don't work..."

"But... but I love 'im."

_Now I'm broken, and I'm faded, I'm half the man I thought I would be..._

"I know," he says. "Well, I don't know, but I know what you mean. I broke up with my girlfriend recently and..." That must be why he's sittin' so miserably in this 'orrible 'ole – "Well, I love her. But sometimes... you know, things just don't work out."

"But... if you love her..."

_But you can have what's left of me..._

He's shaking his head. "It wouldn't work," he says. "We knew it wouldn't work."

I swallow.

"Do you want me to call you a cab?" he asks, after a moment.

"I don't... don't 'ave no money..."

"I'll give you some."

_I've been dying inside, little by little... Nowhere to go, going out of my mind, in endless circles..._

"No... thank you but... I can't take your money... and I 'ave to find Howard..."

_Running from myself until you gave me a reason for standing still..._

He looks at me. Then he sighs. "All right. What does Howard look like, then?"

"Well... he's got brown 'air... brown eyes... moustache... late thirties... wearin' these old chord trousers..."

My friend raises an eyebrow slightly. He's clearly thinkin' Howard doesn't sound my type.

"He's Northern... he's from Leeds... if you speak to 'im 'e's got the accent..."

"Old chord trousers, did you say?" my friend asks suddenly.

"Yeah..."

"Is he wearing a green sweater?"

"Yeah, how'd you know?"

"I think," says my friend, "That that might be him out there." And he points, out of the window, into the rain – to a figure.

"Howard!"

The kebab man jumps so much he drops some of 'is stupid kebabs all over the floor, but I don't care. I sprint out the door with the song in my ears - _And I want you, and I feel you, crawling underneath my skin, like a hunger, like a burning, to find a place I've never been... Now I'm broken, and I'm faded, I'm half the man I thought I would be, but you can have what's left of me..._ – and my new friend comes runnin' after me, and the kebab guy yells, "Hey! You didn't pay for that tea!" and charges after us... and we all go runnin' into the road, into the pourin' white sheet rain – and it's Howard.

Howard.

Standin' near a street light, absolutely soaked. I can see, even from a distance, that his hair's clingin' to 'is 'ead.

He looks up at the sudden commotion – and when he sees me, he takes a step backwards. "Vince?" I hear him call.

"Howard!" I take a step towards him.

"Vince... what are you doing out here? You're ill, you're still recovering from the stomach pump..."

"Howard..."

"Vince, please. Just go home. Please."

_Falling faster, barely breathing_

_Give me something to believe in_

_Tell me it's not all in my head..._

"No!"

"What?"

I go across the road towards him. "Howard. I'm not goin' home. Not without you."

"But, Vince..."

"Howard..."

I reach 'im. Out the corner of me eye, I see my friend and the kebab guy, standin' by the shop, watchin' us.

Then I turn back to Howard. Rain water runs down his face, over his mouth, all through his hair.

And in spite of everything, a little voice in my head still says, "God, he looks sexy when he's all drippin' wet."

"Howard," I say. "Howard, I'm not goin' without you."

He shakes his head. His shoulders are slumped. He looks totally broken. "Vince... please... I can't bear it..."

"Neither can I." I grab both his hands. "Neither can I, Howard. And what I can't bear is bein' without _you_."

He gazes at me. His eyelashes are stickin' together with the rain. His hair's all stuck down to his forehead. I reach up and brush it away. His eyes close as I touch him.

"Howard," I say, "You know I'm not good with words. I know I'm not good with words. I'm not bloody Shakespeare or anythin'. And I've been told, sometimes things just don't work, and you 'ave to give 'em up."

He's looking at me. He's listenin'.

"But Howard, I don't care that I'm not Shakespeare, or that things sometimes 'ave to stop – cos this isn't one of those times, Howard, whatever you think. And Howard, I know you're doin' it cos you want to keep me safe and not hurt me – but we're both hurtin', Howard. Look at us, in this stupid rain, all wet like a tragedy movie. And you'll hurt me more..." My voice catches.

"Vince..."

"No, listen. You'll hurt me more if you go away, because I love you. _I love you_. And you love me. And I know I'm not Shakespeare... but I am Vince. And that might not be a very nice person, and everyone might think of me as this shallow social butterfly – but you – you fell in love with that. And I'm not really anythin' special; all this has shown me that. Howard, all I am is just this." I drop his hands and take a few steps backwards so he can see all of me. "I'm just this. I'm just Vince, and I only 'ave eyes for you. I love you. And that's all I've really got."

The rain thunders on the pavement as I finish speaking.

_Take what's left of this man..._

_Make me whole once again..._

"Oh my God!" Howard says suddenly – and he rushes at me; his arms are round me before I even realise what's happenin', but my arms are round 'im too, cos they were always meant to be there and it's just instinct... and then my mouth finds his.

_Cos I want you, and I feel you, crawling underneath my skin..._

Howard kisses me back, so I can feel the rain in his mouth. The water's all over my hair, clinging to my clothes, making my clothes cling to Howard's... and under my fingers when I bring my hands up to his face to clutch it...

_Oh, a hunger, like a burning, to find a place I've never been..._

Howard's hands grope at my back, and he pulls me closer, kisses down my face, finds my mouth again... my fingers tangle in his hair...

_Now I'm broken, and I'm faded, I'm half the man I thought I would be..._

He kisses me... and all that matters, all there is in the world, is me and Howard... because I do only have eyes for him... and this is what my whole life has been for. To be here now. To kiss him now.

_You can have... All that's left... What's left of me_

"Oh God..." Howard mumbles finally, his words hummin' in my mouth.

"Howard..."

"Vince...!" And his mouth is on mine again, his hands on my face and my hair...

Finally, we stop kissing. Howard leans his forehead against mine. He strokes the water off my face.

"Vince... Vince..."

"Howard..."

"I love you so much..."

"I love you too, I love you too..."

He kisses me again.

_I been dying inside, you see_

_I'm going out of my mind, out of my mind_

_I'm just running in circles all the time..._

Suddenly, we hear someone crying. I pull away slightly and we turn round, to see the kebab guy in floods of tears, sobbing into a very dirty-looking handkerchief, with my friend from the shop pattin' his shoulder rather awkwardly. He sees us lookin' and rolls his eyes – but he smiles at me, noddin' as though to say, "You were right all along, then."

"I've never – I've never been so happy in my entire life!" sobs the kebab guy. "That's just... the most beautiful thing I've ever seen..."

"Do you know them?" Howard whispers to me.

I turn back to him and stroke his face.

"Long story."

Howard laughs rather shakily – and then he pulls me back against him. And this kiss isn't desperate or passionate. It's just sweet. It's just us. Howard and Vince, with water in our mouths and our clothes and our hair. Just us.

_Will you take what's left?_

_Will you take what's left?_

_Will you take what's left of me? _

_Take what's left of me..._

And that's the way I've always wanted it to be.

* * *

**Finally.  
Finally.  
Finally!  
Eh?**

**Ha.  
Anyway, I don't know if I'll have time to get the last chapter up before I go away. I'm going on holiday to Cannes for a week, leaving early on Monday. But Chapter 25 will be mostly wrapping things up anyway. You can all sleep safe in the knowledge that Howard and Vince are together!!**

**Thanks for reading.  
violence x**


	25. Chapter 25

**I'm BACK!!**

**And I'm back to finally finish "Bliss Of Another Kind" for good. 25 chapters, my longest fic ever! Appropriate that it should be the longest, as it was the first. I'm glad I made it to 25. It's a nice round number. Divides neatly into five three times. I'm picky about things like that.**

**Anyway, here is the last chapter. Disclaimers are at the bottom with the thank-yous (I like doing thank-yous) but I'm sure you all know them anyway. **

**Here is the final chapter of my first ever fic on here, "Bliss Of Another Kind"... it really is the end... so enjoy... I'm quite sad this is ending, so I've tried to make it good and full of fluffy things for you all. I really hope I've succeeded. Enjoy.**

* * *

**Chapter 25**

Part of me still can't get it into me 'ead. I've spent what feels like me whole life, me _whole life_, for this to happen. Somehow, the rain makes everything seem so much more real, but at the same time so much more unreal. When Howard finally pulls away from me, still strugglin' for breath a bit, he looks like an outline of a man, not an actual one.

He looks at me and shakes his head. He reaches his 'and up and strokes my face, and hold it to my skin, feelin' the water pressin' off his fingers onto my cheek.

Eventually, when the street lamp flickers and starts bringin' us back and makin' us real people again, we do walk back to the kebab shop, and the kebab guy, who is still in tears, tells me that I can 'ave my tea for nothin'. I didn't really think it was worth payin' for, but I'm not really in the mood to think about that. He also lets my new friend have 'is free, too.

"I've never had such an amazing experience!" he tells us all, thickly. "You've shown me how much love is worth, all of you! I'm gonna call my mum, I haven't seen her for years – I'm gonna get back in touch with my ex-wife and visit my kids again..."

My new friend smiles gently, amused in a touched way, and calls a cab for me and Howard cos we're not really in the right mental state to do it ourselves.

In fact, I don't properly start thinkin' until we're in the cab, and the noise of the rain is suddenly shut out, so it's all silent and dark. I lean my head against Howard's shoulder, relishin' the contact. I feel the wet in his shirt and the wet in me hair, but I kind of like that we're both the same.

Howard leans his head against mine.

I start shiverin' from the water after a bit, and he puts his arms round me properly then.

"I won't be able to keep you very warm," he says. "I'm wet too."

"I don't care," I say. "I don't care if you can't, cos it's you."

--

Perhaps you think we should make love when we get 'ome, but we don't. To be 'onest I reckon we're both too exhausted. We just crash. In his bed, curled up together. But we don't sleep with each other. Not as in sex.

When I wake up next mornin', Howard's sleepin' above me, and the sunlight is streamin' all clear and beautiful through the windows. Not that 'eavy kind of hot sun you sometimes get. Really, really clear. And I remember. And I know that this is it.

Forever.

--

We don't tell Naboo and Bollo right away. Once we've both got over the slight shock of wakin' up with each other, and once we've kissed quite a lot – "We need to make up for the last ten years," I say, which makes Howard all awkward, which I rather like – Howard makes tea, and then we sit in 'is bed and 'ave The Talk.

"I love you," we both say, at once.

Howard tells me he's still afraid of hurtin' me.

I tell 'im that I can't get better if I don't 'ave him. I need him.

I do.

We tell Naboo and Bollo that afternoon. They're smokin' hookah. They 'aven't been doin' that so much recently. They've been too busy. I s'pose they figured that cos I wasn't about, they could have a rest from lookin' after me.

"I guessed," says Naboo, deadpan as ever. "Why else would you have been in the bedroom all day?"

Howard goes bright red.

Naboo just takes another drag of hookah – but 'is eyes are twinkling.

Bollo is more forward. "Bollo relieved," he declares, wavin' his arms about.

"Watch it, Bollo," says Naboo.

Bollo gets up. "Howard," he says solemnly, "Look after precious Vince."

"I will," says Howard.

Bollo gives me a hug. Like I'm gettin' married.

But I don't mind. I like it.

"We'll take things slowly." That was the agreement. But it's only a week before Howard finally relaxes and I lead 'im into my bedroom.

When I wake up next mornin', Howard is watchin' me sleep. As soon as he sees my eyes open, he pulls me in and kisses me, runnin' his hands over my hair.

I don't think he'll ever stop makin' my heart do gymnastics.

--

Gradually, things get back to normal. Me, Howard, Naboo and Bollo. The way it ought to be. Like Bollo said.

Well, almost normal. I'm still seein' me therapist, of course. He says he's very pleased with my progress. It's difficult sometimes, but I want to do it. I want to do it for myself. I want to do it for all of them. I especially want to do it for Howard.

The other difference, of course, is that Howard and I are now very much together.

Our livin' arrangements change a bit, to accommodate this. We alternated at first. Sleepin' in his room, sleepin' in mine. But then Naboo says this is ridiculous so we move into mine, cos it's bigger. Howard gets half the wall to put up his funny jazz pictures – which I'm still not tellin' him I actually find quite endearing – and two shelves. This shelf situation isn't cos I'm selfish. It's just cos Howard has no clothes. (Not literally – unless, of course, I get me hands on him.)

Howard's room becomes the storage room – which is good, because we've got so much random stuff and nowhere to put it. Loads of my old clothes that have gone out of fashion. Various broken things that have been given to us for the shop and we can't sell cos they're useless, or ugly. Things like cans of paint that we needed when we moved in, but don't anymore. Some stuff from the kitchen, like pans, that we don't really 'ave space for (no more incidents of me knockin' stuff out of cupboards). Old magic stuff of Naboo's – "never, ever touch this", he tells us.

Once it's all stuck in that room, I wonder how we lived before without drownin'.

Apart from that, things are just the same. Howard and I still work in the shop – although somehow I'm a lot more fond of the old place now. Bollo still does the cookin' and cleanin' and shoppin'. Naboo's still a bossy sod, but I s'pose that's partly why we like 'im.

"Naboo lonely," says Bollo one time when I'm 'elpin' him unpack the shoppin'. "Think he should take out advert in Lonely Hearts column."

"He'd never agree to that."

"Bollo know. That why Bollo put one in without telling him."

"You – you didn't!"

"Bollo did."

I burst out gigglin'. Bollo chuckles too.

"What 'bout you, Bollo?" I ask, after a few minutes. "You lonely?"

"Oh no. Bollo happy here, make tea for Vince, make spells with Naboo, laugh at Howard –"

"Oi!"

" – sorry. Bollo not need love."

A few moments later, I find a DVD case hidden in one of the shopping bags.

"What...?" I hold it up. "_Chimps Gone Wild 2_?"

Bollo snatches it away. "Bollo not know how that get in there."

"You dirty monkey pervert! No wonder you don't 'ave a girlfriend!"

"No girlfriend as good as porn star anyway," says Bollo, tucking his DVD under his arm and going on unpacking the shopping.

"I reckon all the monkey girls are lucky you don't want 'em," I say. "You'd be a right wife-beater."

"Who's a wife-beater?" asks a familiar voice – and we turn to see Howard, comin' up the stairs clutching some merchandise.

"Howard!" I grin happily, and hurry over. He drops his box and holds his arms out to me. I run into them and he kisses me warmly.

"Bollo would be a wife-beater, if he 'ad a girlfriend," I explain, when we're done. "'E's a right old-fashioned bastard. Reckons no girlfriend's better than a porn star."

"Bollo right. All you need is porn."

"Romance really is dead," I laugh.

"Am I better than a porn star?" Howard teases me.

"Of course... especially when you do that thing with your tongue where..."

"Oh no!" groans Bollo.

"Shut up!" Howard grabs me and tries to put his hand over my mouth, laughing. I struggle, so he picks me up, carries me to the sofa, and throws me down on top of it. "I'm gonna make you shut up!" He starts ticklin' me.

"Bollo! Help! _Howard!_"

"Bollo not looking," says Bollo.

"Eww," says another familiar voice, and we look up to see Naboo, standin' there with 'is arms folded. "What 'ave told you? No hanky-panky on my sofa."

"'Hanky-panky'?" I repeat. "How old are you, Naboo?"

"Over four 'undred, so watch it," he says.

--

'Bout a week after this incident, I get a visitor in the shop.

I'm readin' _Cheekbone_. Angelo DiLacey has broken his own make-up record, 'parently. He did it in one minute nine seconds, a five second increase on his previous time.

Anyway, there I am, and then the bell 'bove the shop door goes, and I look up, and...

"Hello, Vince."

It's my friend from the coffee shop.

I squeak slightly with surprise. "What – how – how d'you get 'ere? How d'you know where we – sorry, what's your –?"

He smiles faintly, in that gentle way I remember so well from that night. "Charles," he says. "I'm Charles. And I knew where you worked because I gave your address to the cab company, remember?"

Of course. I remember now.

"How are ya?" I ask eagerly, hurryin' round the counter.

"How are you?" he says.

I just smile. But it's a smile that tells him everythin' he wants to know.

"I'm glad," he says.

I grin. "D'you want anythin'? Cup of tea?"

"I'm afraid I can't stay," he says. "But I was in the area, and I thought I'd come in, because I wanted to tell you – I'm back with my girlfriend."

"You are?"

"Yes. After what happened with you and Howard – I thought maybe you were right, about trying harder. So I called her up, and, well..." He smiles.

I feel like my silly old grin is splittin' me face in half.

"Anyway," he says, "I have to be going – but we should – you know – have a drink sometime."

"Yeah," I say. "We should."

He shakes my hand, and then turns to go. Then he turns back.

"I took Sara – my girlfriend – to see the kebab shop – and remember the owner?"

I nod.

"He had his kids visiting," Charles says. And leaves.

After he's gone, I lie back on the counter, crushin' my _Cheekbone_ – but strangely, _Cheekbone_ doesn't mean as much anymore. Angelo DiLacey hasn't got Howard. I do.

--

So it really does seem to be an 'appy endin' for everybody.

Charles and Sara are back together. The kebab guy did get in touch with 'is kids. My therapy goes on goin' well. The Velvet Onion hosts a gig that NME approves of, so suddenly loads more people are goin' down there and Bob Fossil's so busy that 'e doesn't have so much time to be a freak anymore. I see him in the street sometimes. He says, "Good morning, Vincey" and I say, "Good mornin', Fossil", pretty normal, now. Everyone's got someone, or somethin'.

Even Leroy gets someone. I don't see 'im as much anymore, but one time when we go to a club together – I invite Howard but he says he'd rather stay at home, so I promise I'll hurry back – he introduces me to a blonde girl.

I recognise 'er. It's one of the girls we met before, the ones he went off and had a threesome with.

"We kept in touch," Leroy explains. "We got talking over coffee the mornin' after and found we both love strawberry bootlaces and X-box games!"

When she goes to the bathroom, he adds privately that she doesn't mind 'im livin' like a pig, because she does too.

Proof, I think, that there's someone for everyone.

Bollo's got his porn collection.

Naboo's in the lonely hearts column, waitin' for some short shaman lady to find 'im. If this fairy tale theme goes on, I wouldn't be too surprised if she comes along sooner rather than later.

The four of us are still in our flat. We 'ave TV dinners and argue with each other and don't earn enough money, but that's the way we like it.

The Moon sings even more than usual. Perhaps 'e's found someone too. I close my eyes and imagine that Earth is really a pretty, clear-eyed girl with a funny voice a bit like 'is, and he finally put a move on 'er and she said yes.

And then I open my eyes and shift over in bed, in the dark of the nights or the sleepy warm haziness of the morning. And I find Howard.

Yes. I've got Howard.

I put my head on his chest and he holds me against him, and we only 'ave eyes for each other. It's weird. It's crazy. Everyone wanted it, no-one suspected it would ever 'appen. We're so different people never understood how we were friends. They still don't understand how we're together. He still loves jazz and wears tropical shirts. I still can't get up early and dress like a "futuristic prostitute", as he puts it. So yeah, it's mental. But it's bliss. Not the old kind, from havin' my hair look good or playin' loud electro music. Another kind.

_Steady as it comes  
Right down to you  
I've said it all  
So maybe we're a bliss  
__Of another kind...  
__Bliss of another kind..._

**The End**

* * *

The Mighty Boosh and all its characters belong to Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding.

The title for this story came from a line in the Tori Amos song "Bliss".  
The chorus is the quote at the bottom of the story.

violence4 would like to thank all her amazing readers for their love and support –  
stars of andromeda  
Ceni Vonir  
northernbullet  
Beechwood0708  
ButtonsMagoo  
x Thursday Next x  
SparkieSchteff (who was the first person ever to review this story – thank you!)  
SusanWerewolf  
JantoFan  
chugirl2526  
-Sassy-Saz-  
RSNatalie  
Missing Fairy  
jojosephs  
Mommys-Little-Nightmare  
JellybeanPunk  
musangel88  
Captain Trousers

... and anyone I forgot. Sorry. Thank you.  
And anyone who read and didn't review. I don't mind that you didn't review. Your silent support is just as appreciated. Thank you.

_July 24th... sequel to "The Jazz Maverick, the Mod & the Wardrobe" will be up...  
_(Shameless self-promotion.)


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